Are you looking for a great way reduce costs, make your business more environmental friendly and increase productivity? You might consider moving towards a paperless office, by taking your business collaboration online.

Statistics show that the average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper each year, which amounts to roughly 4 million tons of copy paper used annually (http://epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/paper/faqs.htm#offices)

It’s no wonder corporations push so hard for the “paperless” office. Ironically, the advent of the internet has actually encouraged more printing, as people tend to share more valuable information that they feel they need to print to see later.

That’s why online collaboration platforms prove so valuable – they allow team workers to upload, store and share important documents and files online. These files are then accessible at anytime, in secure, organized workspaces, reducing the need to print them out for later reference. As long as team members have an internet connection, they have access to their online documents and files.

Online collaboration reduces the need to print out:

1. Contracts. Collaboration software solutions allow you to set up secure workspaces in which contracts with clients and partners can be finalized in real time.

2. Employee handbooks. Upload your employee training manuals as PDFs onto your corporate Intranet so employees can access and revisit the company policies on their own time. This will also save training time and resources.

3. Receipts. You can save your financial records online, and organize them by date, size and type of receipt.

4. Collateral. Keep track of your marketing inventory online. File your case studies, PDFs, whitepapers, ads, flyers and newsletters in organized folders where you can access anytime you need them.

5. Company directories. Especially in a growing company, you need to edit and add team members onto your company directory all the time. Putting your company directory online allows you to make real time changes, without reprinting any directory or contact information.

6. Corporate Announcements . Many businesses still rely on good old fashioned memos to relay new company announcements to team members. Using an online intranet is a great alternative that not only saves paper and ink, but it allows team members to make announcements in real time, instantaneously, and immediately notify any or all teams of the announcement.

7. Company documents and publications. Corporate documents like press releases, case studies, articles, blog posts, technical manuals and newsletters need to be collaboratively revised and edited by several members of your team before publication. Online document collaboration allows you to edit co author those documents online, making changes and tracking revisions as needed, and bypassing the need for handwritten editing process.

Get an online collaboration solution today and start filing your documents online for cheaper, faster and more efficient document organization across your entire organization. By going paperless, you’ll be promoting an eco friendly office environment, spending less money and resources on paper, and be able to focus more time and money towards bettering your product.

Author Bio: Grace Kang is a SEO and marketing copywriter for Central Desktop, an Online Collaboration and Intranet Software solution for business teams.

Category: Advice
Keywords: online collaboration, collaboration software, intranet software, team collaboration, collaboration