The trend to go paperless has been motivated by business efficiency, cost savings, and environmental reasons.
The UK uses and disposes of approximately 10 million tonnes of paper annually, and around 20% of all UK waste is paper. Of that, 50% of business waste consists of paper products. This includes office documents, packaging, and printing errors.
Go paper-free using software suites like Microsoft 365 to support your team while slashing costs. It’s the perfect solution for going paper-free while modernising your processes.
Let’s discuss Microsoft 365 in greater detail and how it can help your business achieve newfound productivity and growth.
The Benefits of Going Paper-Free
Before moving on, let’s quickly recap the leading benefits of going paper-free:
- Enhanced Collaboration: In a paper-free office, team members can collaborate on documents in real time, regardless of their location. Eliminate the need for endless email chains and version confusion, turbocharging collaboration.
- Improved Efficiency: By digitising documents and storing them in the cloud, employees can access the information they need anytime, anywhere.
- Secure Data Management: Microsoft 365 offers advanced security features and compliance certifications, ensuring data security complies for GDPR and internal security compliance.
- Reduced Environmental Impact: As noted, going paper-free reduces your company’s carbon footprint by minimising paper waste and the need for physical storage space.
- Cost Savings: Eliminating the need for paper, ink, and physical storage can result in significant cost savings over time.
Microsoft 365 Tools for a Paper-Free Office
Microsoft 365 offers a plethora of digital productivity tools that can support any business, regardless of its size or industry.
Here are some of the core tools the Microsoft 365 ecosystem offers:
- SharePoint: A versatile platform that enables seamless collaboration among team members. It’s a centralised hub where employees can work together on documents in real-time and access company policies, procedures, project files, etc.
- OneDrive: This provides each employee with a personal cloud storage space, offering 1TB of storage per user. It allows secure access to work files from any device, anywhere, and integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 applications.
- Microsoft Teams: A communication and collaboration platform that combines chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. It benefits from Microsoft’s AI Copilot companion, as do many other 365 tools.
- Power Automate: Formerly known as Microsoft Flow, this tool allows you to create automated workflows between your favourite apps and services to synchronise files, get notifications, collect data, and more.
- OneNote: A digital note-taking app that provides a single place for all your notes, ideas, and to-do lists. It integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps.
Making the Transition with Hive Communications
Transitioning to a paper-free office with Microsoft 365 can seem time-consuming when you consider everything from deployment to setup and training, but professional help makes the process as smooth and seamless as possible.
At Hive Communications, we specialise in helping organisations set up and optimise their Microsoft 365 environments.
Our team can design and implement a solution that meets your unique business needs, ensuring a seamless transition and maximising your investment in Microsoft 365.
Contact us today, and let us guide you to a paper-free office with Microsoft 365.