Thank you for the opportunity to perform research into the possibility of transitioning the franchise into paperless offices. 
You may not be happy to find out just how must potential profits that have been wasted over the years on paper and related supplies. But you’ll be very happy to learn that this situation can be rectified easily and cheaply. Research has been done into the potential pitfalls of a paperless office and they simply do not apply to our situation. I believe that the franchise (and possibly your other franchises; I’m aware you own 5 in total) can transition into a paperless office for the 2019 season with nary a mishap.
I suggest you meet with The IT department and upper management at your convenience with your feedback and ideally, request that they implement the recommendations within this report.

 The offices go through thousands, if not tens of thousands of these checks every season. That’s your money. A paperless office would not need check stock, and it would eliminate the prohibitive internal controls necessary to have check stock. 

Next is the cost of storing and shredding documents. The file cabinets themselves have an upfront cost, as well as a drain in productivity from having to sort through them, find the files you need at the moment, and in the case of smaller offices, the space they take up. These cabinets must also constantly remain locked when not in use as they contain confidential information on clients, posing a security threat and an internal control drain that can be eliminated. Shredding documents has problems as well. In many cases we need to shred documents in the office because they contain confidential information or simply because the client requests it – and the shredders tend to break easily because they aren’t built for shredding the amount of paperwork we have to shred, hence why my boss shows up 3 or more times a season with a brand new shredder. That’s your money. In addition to that, all the documents stored in those file cabinets are shredded at the end of the season – by a third-party company that YOU have to pay. A paperless office would not need file cabinets or shredders in the first place.


You might exclaim that our franchise could simply use cheaper ink. No, we can’t. First, HP spent billions ensuring the HP printers you use will not work with “aftermarket ink” (ie, ink not made by HP). Switching ink would require you to be an entirely new set of printers for the whole franchise. Second, cheaper ink is indeed of lower quality, and would not last against the storage processes, scanning systems, and of course, the client’s usage. Your offices would save a lot of money (thousands of dollars a season!) if they cut out ink, and ink naturally goes away if you take out paper.

Being a paperless office is a big benefit to the company. Clients will perceive our operation as “cutting edge” or “state of the art” because of our paperless operation, and that is a good image for our company to have. In addition, the environmental benefits will also improve our company’s image – no modern company wants to be seen as a “paper guzzler” any more than a modern vehicle wants to be seen as a “gas guzzler”. And just as a car that uses fuel at all will be seen as a gas guzzler at some point when electric cars are commonplace, someday paperless offices will be commonplace, and using paper at all will be enough to be a “paper guzzler”.
