Scanner + Intern Does Not Equal Green

The scanning service bureau world has heard these words a thousand times - "no thanks, we are going to hire some interns and scan all of the documents with our new scanner". I am sure all of our fellow service providers are nodding, yep they have heard those same words.

On the surface it seems like a good idea. Hire college kids for $10/hour, buy a $2,500 scanner that does 75 pages per minute, point them to the file room and get it done. Some math is done to estimate the total cost and to get an idea of when the project will be complete. Sounds good, doesn't it. Clear out that file room. Have documents available on the computer. Less paper in the office. What a great story - Green Green Green.

Here is the rest of the story. The CEO has lunch with a critical customer who wants to double his orders in a new area if the price is right. The problem is when the CEO asks for data to support the pricing, nobody can find the information. Everyone is sure the documents that contain the data were scanned. The documents were in the file cabinet and the interns scanned all the documents in that cabinet. The CFO, the COO, the Director of Sales, two associates and a forensic specialist are brought in to find these files. Two days later they were found on a local drive in the iTunes folder - oops.

I don't think I need to do the math on what it cost to try to find those documents. I also don't want anyone to get the idea that it was a bad idea to scan in the first place. Quite the contrary, it was a great idea to scan. But, like most things in life, it is not that it was a bad idea or bad timing or the wrong people, it can usually be summed up by saying it was poor execution.

Scanner + Intern + Planning can equal Green. Call a service bureau to help consult you on the planning part. Then you will see Green and not Red at an inopportune time.

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