There is no doubt: The adoption of the digital signature is unstoppable. The latest market report elaborated by Report Buyer for Business Insider says of this technology; “it’s expected that the international digital signature market will reach 9,000 million euros by 2023, mainly due to the increased security in organizations, interest growing in governments to eliminate paperwork and the increasing importance that is charging e-commerce and online transactions around the world”.
This increasingly widespread use of the digital signature is related to the conception of the office as a space without papers. Also, although this may seem an oxymoron, the truth is that it is an idea with which we are already familiar.
Just do a three minute search on Google to find news about paperless spaces: The government of Dubai hopes to eliminate the use of paper by 2021 completely; in Australia, the real estate sector wants all of its transactions to be carried out online by 2019; and the city of Austin, in the United States, is already taking its first steps to become a paperless municipality.
Given this data, the question is not whether the offices will become paperless, but when they will do so. Is it time to finally say goodbye to the paper?
An essential role in history
Throughout history, paper has accompanied us fulfilling various functions, the most important of which has been the transmission of cultural, legal and administrative content in a durable material, cheap and easy to develop and use.
Since its invention in China in the year 200 BC, paper has been an essential tool in our world. The appearance of Gutenberg’s printing press in the fifteenth century also enabled the mass transmission of all kinds of information on this material, especially for the burgeoning bourgeois class, which required an adequate means to keep their business accounts in writing. We must remember that up to that time in Europe parchments were used, made with animal hide, which supposed that the production of books was scarce and expensive.
The gradual adoption of paper in the Old Continent is also related to events such as the Industrial Revolution, which allowed the large-scale manufacture of this material with cellulose pulp (obtained from wood) for various uses from the nineteenth century.
It was at the end of the 80s when the debate began on the need to implement an efficient recycling system for waste, among which were those of paper. However, it was not until the decade of the 90s when they began to raise laws about it. Today it is considered that there are three types of paper that can be used as raw material for recycling: grinding, pre-consumer waste and post-consumer waste.
Why this paperless trend?
While it seems that the concepts “paper” and “office” are inevitably linked, to the point of being inextricable, the truth is that with the digitalization of organizations there is a change of trend that will be increasingly acuter.
There are several reasons for this evolution:
- The economic savings. The physical documents have to be printed, copied, sent to their addressee for their signature, stored and, if necessary, destroyed. This involves a significant expenditure of money.
- Better organization of documents. The files are useful, but they require an increasingly large storage space; Also, there is a risk that some documentation will be misplaced or lost, with the various consequences that this can bring to the organization.
- Greater agility to close transactions, contracts and agreements. Digitization allows you to carry out various procedures more comfortably and quicker, regardless of distance. Meaning significant time savings that can be spent on other tasks to improve productivity in an organization.
- Less environmental pollution. The massive use of paper has a tremendous ecological impact due to the so-called carbon footprint (the gases that cause greenhouse effect). Therefore, the decrease in the use of paper will result in a lower level of contamination.
Although estimated that today 80% of the processes of an organization are still done on paper, everything points to this percentage significantly reducing in the near future.
nebulaSUITE and the paperless office
nebulaSUITE contributes to the gradual adoption of the paperless office with its legally recognized digital signature solution, nebulaSIGN, issued through qualified digital certificates for compliance with eIDAS.
Undoubtedly, having a digital signature solution that allows complex and personalized workflows is a strong reason to reduce the amount of paper used daily in an office, with the consequent advantages that this implies: saving time and money, higher productivity and the security of the signature recognition.
Do you need more info?
If you would like to know more about how nebulaSUITE contributes to the transformation of the traditional office to the paperless and want to request a demo to verify it for yourself, you can contact us here. We will be happy to give you more information about it.
