Contributed
Glen Gill, principal of Infogroup Limited, is seen here making a presentation, on Tuesday on electronic record management at the 'Eat n Talk' mini-expo, at the PCJ Auditorium, New Kingston.

Richard Deane, Business Writer

Management consultant Glen Gill calls himself an evan-gelist of the paperless age, a quest that, he says, is reflected in the set-up of his offices at Infogroup Limited, a software consultancy firm at the Technology Innovation Centre.

Gill says he has no photocopiers, no high-speed printers; but you will find, beside his desk, a shredder.

"The less paper the better, once you have a good system of archiving," he says.

According to the consultant, who last week addressed a seminar on electronic record management, one of his clients, a local insurance company, had an entire division devoted to the storage of past information, from premiums to invoices.

Waste of resources

The unit was outfitted with staff to catalogue and index the information as well as a van to drive the hard copies to and from the storage area.

To Gill, this was an unnecessary expense; a waste of resources.

There are no data on how much archive or storage costs affects the bottom line of companies in Jamaica, and Gill had to admit that, even for him, the paperless quest was not easy, especially when business is good and companies' client lists are expanding.

"It's a constant battle to keep my desk clear of paper, and I am losing the battle," Gill said at the mini-expo, dubbed 'Eat n Talk', at the PCJ Auditorium in New Kingston Tuesday.

He still believes though that making an effort to trim the clutter will help boost efficiency and profit growth.

He recommends that if firms want to better their efficiency, they should not start by throwing money at new technology but look at their business process, and find simple solutions, such as scanning and emailing to making that process less wasteful.

Business process

"You have to work with your business process and see the steps that are involved and see how each thing is to be handled," Gill said.

In his own firm, Gill is in the process of setting up various e-management solutions, such as electronic bank transfers and invoicing, imaging and scanning, internal 'wiki' libraries and blogs, along with social-networking sites.

On the matter of invoicing and bank transfers, the consultant said instead of printing an invoice and sending it with a messenger to the client, his company plans to do the entire transaction electronically.

"My accounting system can just create an invoice and send it to the client, the client approves it and sends a bank transfer to my account," Gill said.

He also plans to store all his records in a digital medium, which requires investment in imaging and scanning technology, and elimination of the filing cabinet.

Transfer knowledge

To transfer knowledge and information throughout the organisation, Gill will be employing internal blogs and wiki libraries, along with social-networking sites.

"You have experts in the organisation that have information that will stay in their heads," Gill said, "and they leave the company or they die and the information leaves with them."

An internal blog is an organisational online journal where employees post thoughts, comments and news. The internal wiki library - modelled off the online encyclopaedia to which anyone can add knowledge - acts as a reservoir of information on policies, products and other aspects of the business and is updated and critiqued by the employees themselves.

Gill says that the only disadvantage he could find in his paperless system is if the company's internal control systems were to crash, eliminating information and wiping out the investment.

"That is a big disadvantage, but as technology becomes more reliable, it becomes more possible for us to avoid that scenario," said Gill.

richard.deane@gleanerjm.com