Ditch the Paper: These 5 Practices Are Going Digital
It’s amazing how many service-based companies have to apologise for their technology. Just today at the bank a woman apologised to me for how slow the system was right at opening. Some technology is just an online version of analogue predecessors, and unfortunately these processes often get in the way of companies doing good business in real time.
I’m a patient person, and since I didn’t have any place to be this morning, the extra few minutes it took the bank’s systems to boot up didn’t bother me. However, not everyone has the time to wait, including employees operating the slow technology.
Matt Goss, managing director – SMB, Concur, said, “Employees have grown accustomed to the friendly, intuitive experiences that smartphones and tablets deliver. Businesses need to come to the party and deliver the same experience in the workplace. Often, businesses use outdated practices not because there aren’t better alternatives out there, but through force of habit.
“While technology doesn’t necessarily mean less work it does hold the promise of bringing new, intuitive tools into our work lives to make it better.”
Goss and Concur have detailed five digital trends that are on the rise in the workplace. Save your employee’s patience, and give them a system that works and works fast.
1. Digital contract-signing. Signing a contract can still involve a surprising amount of hassle and take days to complete, with printing, signing, scanning and emailing. With e-signature services like Adobe Echosign and Docusign, a contract can be sent, signed and delivered with a few clicks. e-signatures can lead to a bigger deal size, shorter sales cycles and higher win rates.
2. Smartphone as your wallet. Wallet-free living is coming soon. ApplePay ensures that we’ll see much more innovation in this area very soon. Google, PayPal, Visa and MasterCard are all in various stages of developing mobile banking systems.
3. Conference calls that work. New solutions like UberConference automatically call you when it’s time for the meeting to start, show you who’s in the meeting and who’s speaking, plus how long they stayed, all without lifting a finger.
4. Hands-free commuting. Office culture exploded in the post-industrial era, which meant that the morning commute became accepted as a torturous, yet necessary, part of working life. With advances like driverless cars, adaptive traffic signals, and road trains bumper-to-bumper traffic may soon become something of the bygone era.
5. Paperless receipts. The promise of paperless offices has long been with us and yet only now with smartphones does this vision seem to be within grasp. Evernote’s ScanSnap is one example of how painless it can now be to capture and organise important documents, like receipts. With a single button, you can ditch paper-bound methods for good.
About Concur
Concur is the leading provider of spend management solutions and services in the world, helping companies of all sizes transform the way they manage spend so they can focus on what matters most. Learn more at www.concur.com or the Concur blog.
