2021 a year of paperless and digital customer communication

In 2020, digitization hit the headlines. It was during this period that many organizations decided to adapt new systems and processes or introduce changes to their existing business operations that allowed them to operate uninterrupted. Earlier, these organizations had been delaying their decisions to make these amendments. One of the elements of digitization is paperless, which means moving away from paper documents to their electronic version. Invoices, contracts, statements and other documents that companies exchange with their customers every day are tons of paper, the use of which can be significantly reduced to the benefit of both parties. These are the trends that Piotr Mazur, Director of Mass Communication Division at Asseco, believes will affect digital communication with customers in 2021.

In the short term, outsourcing is used to reduce costs and improve the quality and security of services provided. In the long term, however, it is a measure that should be of fundamental importance to the organization, as an element needed in planning development and further activities of the company and bringing long-term benefits.The main purpose of using outsourcing of services is the financial element, i.e. the reduction of costs of doing business. Currently, there is a trend showing that outsourcing is one of the key elements allowing for cost optimization. In the business context, it is the quality of cooperation and service delivery, as well as the simplification of processes that are increasingly important to clients, not just the price aspect.

It is evident that customers are primarily focused on achieving high quality of implemented services in order to ensure the highest satisfaction of end users. It becomes very important that a supplier is a partner who perfectly understands the processes implemented on the customer side and is a trustworthy contractor.According to data, the outsourcing market is still growing. Customer-supplier relationships are becoming more long-lasting and based on trust, resulting in a tendency to transfer parts of internal processes to "outside" execution.

In 2021, key business operations will be outsourced increasingly more often, and not mainly additional ones, as has been the case so far. The year 2020 was definitely a period of increased interest of clients in outsourcing selected services, which has been influenced to a significant degree by the pandemic, which forced the verification of all processes in the context of ensuring business continuity, while maintaining a high level of implementation. This trend is expected to continue in 2021, primarily because process optimization projects are usually implemented in the long term.

‍Digitization of the state

‍Modern digital technologies have a very large impact on the competitiveness and innovation of the economy. The use of digitization in the sphere of public life is an indicator of the level of socio-economic development of countries. The program "From paper to digital Poland" conducted by the Ministries of: Development, Digitization, Finance, Infrastructure and National Education aims to digitalize the domestic economy and develop an e-state. Increased participation of products and services in the digital state means the need to adapt systems and services on the part of business entities, among others in the field of communication with customers and information distribution. A good example are the implemented solutions under the e-Invoice and e-Receipt programs, which lead to activities aimed at digitization of the circulation and distribution of documents.

The implementation of digital services and products very often requires fundamental changes in the organization of the company's work. It is a process that simultaneously concerns investment in human capital and in technology. Interest in systems that provide opportunities for electronic communication with customers grows every year. The forecasts for 2021 clearly show much higher interest in services related to the transition from the traditional paper model of invoice distribution to the e-invoice model. We predict that the adaptation of systems on the side of invoice issuers in some cases may force the use of dedicated tools and systems to fully effective implementation of these tasks.

‍The growing role of paperless

‍The digital world is evolving and the latest technologies are becoming more accessible. Running a paperless business is becoming easier and easier. With the advent of effective and widespread data processing and electronic documents, going paperless seems inevitable. There are many compelling reasons to move in the direction of launching paperless projects to increase the level of information accessibility.Today, it takes only seconds to receive an email or access electronic documents online. By offering much faster and easier access to information, digital technology is also helping to automate tasks and significantly reduce reliance on methods of operation in use so far. In the year 2020, remote working became almost a standard part of fulfilling work duties and no doubt the days of waiting in the office for a courier to deliver a package containing an important client contract are slowly becoming a thing of the past.Increasingly, clients are taking advantage of easily accessible, secure and, most importantly, legally compliant forms of electronic document storage. Electronic archive or electronic storage media services are one of the major trends in our clients' business development planning in 2021.Another argument in favor of paperless is the cost of handling and archiving paper documents. High expenses associated with printing and postal services are one of the main motivators for switching from traditional, paper-based correspondence distribution model to electronic one. Using services of specialized companies, the transition from paper to electronic correspondence is fast and business-friendly.‍

Progress of digitization of processes in companies - challenges and threats

‍Digitization is now one of the main determinants of innovation. In 2021, in the process of digital business transformation, the most important premise will still be the automation of more and more processes in companies. Regardless of what elements of this process we are talking about, one of the factors that will affect the dynamic development of the trend are the solutions offered by qualified providers, which to a large extent save time and work effort.The main added value of these solutions is flexibility, especially useful when the scale of the business changes in the short term, or when it is necessary to maintain greater control over the budget. The supplier's support and experience also helps to ensure the reliability of the IT infrastructure and its increased efficiency. The use of proven electronic workflow solutions is one of the dominant issues in discussions about planned implementations in 2021, the implementation of which will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the acceleration of digitization processes on a global scale.