According to a survey of industry professionals, 42.4% of respondents listed budgetary concerns as the major factor preventing their companies from implementing a mobile solution. How much of a financial burden is going mobile really, though?
Cutting paper
Manual processing of paper-based forms is a time-consuming process, and from coffee spills and poor handwriting to lost forms and missed data, it is an expensive and imperfect system. An AIIM survey estimated that paper-based forms cost businesses $4.56 per document or form, from start to finish. Pair that with Visioneer Inc.’s estimation that, on average, 7.5% of all paper documents are lost altogether, and the re-creation costs associated are inestimable. Whether processing ten or ten thousand forms, having to pay twice for 7.5% of all forms submitted is paying for too many.
Not only does the cost of paper documents cost more than collecting and transmitting data using a software solution, the time it takes to implement changes is reduced when using a mobile solution. If management has to wait for paper files to be processed, the length of time that it takes to implement a process change is greater. Data collection using a mobile platform allows changes to be made more quickly, which means it reduces the chance of accident or injury if a process or condition is found to be unsafe. For more on the benefits of mobile data collection, check out Benefits of Mobile Data Collection in Condition-Based Asset Management.
Cost benefits
Every company will have different experiences depending on the data management systems they use. However, it’s important to consider the costs saved beyond just paper when migrating to a mobile solution. For example, Summerhill’s Program Manager, Jonathan Hudson, did a cost benefit analysis looking at the effect of adopting a mobile solution on his company. “The old paper form process was costing us approximately $100 per month per field rep. Now,” says Hudson, “according to the numbers, each month, [our mobile solution] pays for itself in the first week.”
Adopting intelligently
Depending on a company’s needs, the cost aspect of mobile adoption can be mitigated in a number of ways. Having employees use their own devices, for example, or working with a specialist to develop a controlled release with a select number of workers both can ease the financial barrier towards engaging a mobile system. For more on how to mitigate some of the cost concerns surrounding adopting EHS software, check out Top 3 EHS Software Objections & Solutions.
Conclusion
Budgeting for the present can be difficult. It’s important, however, to consider where investments can be made to support future growth. Adopting mobile forms incurs a cost additional to pre-existing systems, but in the long term allows teams to save time and money.