What Users Think About Paperless Technology: Survey Results

Pursuing the development and implementation of an electronic archive system , we pay great attention to dialogue with users. So, last year we conducted a survey “ What do users think about paperless technologies? ”, Whose main goal was to analyze the attitude of Russian users to paperless technologies for working with documents.
Links to the survey were posted on our blog on Habré, on the blog on LiveJournal, as well as on the specialized portal ElArchivo.
The total number of respondents was 319 people. Experts in various fields answered our questions: programmers, translators, accountants, journalists, university professors ... We express our sincere gratitude to everyone who participated in the survey and expressed their comments in the comments.

Facts and Figures

• in 54% of the organizations where our respondents work, paperless technologies are not used to the full extent: software for electronic document management / electronic storage of documents is installed, but work with most documents is done in paper form;
• 30.5% of respondents say that their organizations do not use any software for working with electronic documents at all;
• 70.4% of respondents say that they would like to work with all documents in electronic form
• only 3.1% of respondents believe that all documents of enterprises and organizations should have paper duplicates
• 33.7% of respondents believe that transfer to a completely paperless office is possible
• 68.4% consider stupidity, laziness and greed to be the main obstacles to paperless workflow

Comments

The statistics we have obtained are quite typical for a period when paper documents have not yet completely gone (and probably won't go) into the past. Our results practically do not differ from the results of a similar topic survey conducted by the French company Generix Group : just like our Russian respondents, the French have high hopes for paperless technologies, but at the same time they remain committed to paper, which is more familiar and in many cases credible.
It is quite possible that due to a number of reasons in our country, electronic documents have much higher expectations than in Europe. In Russia, unlike most European countries, where mail works like clockwork and there are no problems with the delivery of paper documents, the situation is exactly the opposite. The transition to electronic document management and electronic storage of documents is considered by many to be the only panacea for the delays so inevitable when working with paper. It is time saving that 80.6% of respondents consider the only advantage of paperless technology.
In the comments to the survey and to our post on Habré, many said that a specific Russian problem (although judging by the publications, this problem exists not only in Russia) is currently the inability to ensure a balance between paper and electronic documents. It often happens that all electronic documents have to be duplicated on paper, and it is the latter that in this case have paramount legal significance. You don’t have to go far for examples: just remember the well-known site gosuslugi.ru. Unfortunately, work to solve this problem is not being conducted properly in a few places.

The survey shows that specialized software for working with electronic documents in Russia is installed in a very small number of organizations: 28.4% of our respondents installed electronic document management systems and 5.3% installed electronic document management systems. 10.5% use ECM systems with document management and document storage modules in their professional activities, 22.5% use various means for collaboration (Dropbox, GoogleDocs, etc.). A fairly large proportion of respondents (30.5%) have not installed any software for working with electronic documents at all.

Which of the following types of software is used to store documents and work with them in your organization?


In our opinion, a low percentage of specialized software is due to the fact that:

• electronic document management and electronic document storage systems are quite expensive, and not every organization can afford them
• Russian users are not well informed about paperless technologies
• people of the older generation work with documents in most organizations (especially state ones), who find it difficult to readjust and stop thinking in “paper” categories

Despite the fact that there are so few users of electronic document management software in Russia, many of our respondents actively perform various work operations without using paper: 64.5% regularly check the status of bank accounts via the Internet, 59.1% order equipment, and 54.8% - office supplies; 54.8% - submit tax reports, 48.4% - pay for mobile communications and the Internet, 45.2% - purchase air and train tickets, 44.1% - exchange documents with contractors.
23.7% regularly use the Internet to contact public authorities.

Which of the following operations in your organization are regularly carried out over the Internet?


70.4% of respondents completely agree that work with all documents of the organization can be carried out in electronic form. 23.5% of respondents agree to work in electronic form only with everyday documents such as acts, invoices, etc. Only 3.1% of respondents believe that all documents of enterprises and organizations should have paper duplicates. The spectrum of opinions on this issue is presented in a more visual form in the figure below:

Do you agree that all the documents you have to work with exist only in electronic form?


The respondents consider the undoubted advantages of electronic document management and electronic storage to be time savings (80.6%), cost savings (73.5%), increased work productivity (73.5%), space savings (79.6%), the possibility of organizing joint work (74.5%). Other benefits include simplified work with documents (68.4%), a higher level of security of documents from unauthorized access (39.8%). Very many (52%) call saving paper and protecting forests from deforestation one of the important advantages of switching to paperless technologies.

What do you think is the advantage of using paperless technology?


On the question of whether or not a complete transition to paperless technologies is possible in the near future, opinions were divided. 33% of respondents believe that such a transition is quite possible; 25.5% - which is impossible, since paper continues to play a significant role in our lives. 17.3% believe that Russia can switch to paperless technology only by order of the President of the Russian Federation. Another 17% think that the transition is quite possible, but not in Russia. This picture is understandable for the reasons described above.

Do you think a transition to a completely paperless office is possible?


Among the factors hindering the transition to paperless technologies, our respondents highlight primarily stupidity, laziness and greed (68.4%), as well as insufficient awareness of potential users about electronic document management and electronic document storage technologies. The survey participants consider the imperfection of the current legislation (57.1%), the fear of losing important documents (44.9%), the high cost of technical and software solutions (30.6%), and the inability to ensure serious obstacles to complete release from paper. a sufficient level of confidentiality when working with electronic documents (21.4%). It was when answering this last question that the respondents who chose the item “Other (indicate)” brought the largest number of different options. We also talked about conservatism of thinking, and the reluctance of staff to learn, and even corruption ... They wrote that most of the systems presented on the Russian market are imperfect (by the way, I would like to receive detailed comments on this item). Another respondent indicated the unintuitive interfaces of the software used.
Some think more globally and name reasons of a more global nature: government policy, Russia, etc., etc. However, we can hardly agree with supporters of such a radical position: for the most part, the answers to this question are not much different from those given by participants in similar surveys in Europe.

What, in your opinion, is hindering the spread of paperless technology?


The data obtained during the survey, in our opinion, quite adequately reflect the situation: many realities of the paper era are already morally obsolete, but they still haven’t left the stage, and new “digital” practices of working with documents have not yet developed. Moreover, the data obtained do not differ from the results of surveys conducted in Europe and the USA.
I would like to hope that very soon time will put everything in its place, the imperfections of the legislation and the notorious stupidity, laziness and greed will be overcome, and paperless technologies will finally begin to work for the benefit of people.