Introduction Most business information is in the form of paper documents. Industry analysts report that about 94 percent of business information is on paper and 2.7 billion new sheets of paper are filed into folders every day.
Paper has obvious advantages, such as portability, ease of use, and cost.
However, paper also has its drawbacks. At any given time, between three and five percent of a company's files are lost or misplaced. For example, computers can track large amounts of customer data. Paper documents and information resides outside of the computer, separate from other data and companion documents in the information base. Paper is the major information base of a business, but because it cannot be easily moved, copied and automated, it remains outside of digital business information systems.