Globe pushes for paperless office with Canvas

MANILA, Philippines - The sight of three grown men all feeding a paper shredder is a curious sight, and that’s exactly how Globe Telecom recently concluded its press conference to announce its partnership with Canvas, a “global leader in mobile apps for business.”

The message is clear, according to Globe VP for IT-enabled services (IG) Rey Lugtu. “Welcome to the paperless revolution,” he declared, and maintained that Globe is a “company championing sustainability,” and is “committed to reduce the (environmental) impact of business operations.”

Globe, Lugtu continued, “has been implementing a paperless billing program which aims to reduce cost of printing and delivery.” He reported that close to 700,000 subscribers have opted for e-mailed billing statements – a move that has saved approximately three million sheets of paper or some 3,200 trees annually.

Now, through mobile application Canvas, Globe this time conscripts the participation of enterprise clients to make another push towards going paperless. United States-based Canvas is an “easy, fast, and economical way for businesses to find, customize and create mobile forms to replace paper forms.”

Said Canvas channel and partnership manager for Australia, New Zealand, and Asia Pacific Dan Stevens: “It’s all about making paper obsolete in the workplace, so you could make yourself more productive and more efficient.”

Stevens cited the five biggest issues caused by paper-based processes: time spent re-keying data, searching for paper copies, and filing; storage volume and cost; inability to monitor workflow progress; lost paperwork; and compliance and audit issues.

All these, he averred, will be things of past through Canvas. The “cloud-based software service… enables users to collect information using mobile devices, share that information and integrate (it) with existing backend systems. Canvas also offers the first mobile business application store of its kind, allowing businesses from diverse industries to find mobile forms specific to their needs.“

In a release, Globe Telecom said that “enterprise and small and medium-sized business customers… can unlock the potential of their smartphones and tablets by shifting key business processes from paper forms to dynamic mobile apps with functionalities” such as “GPS, image capture, dispatch, barcode scanning, electronic signatures, push notifications and access to business data such as parts catalogs, price lists and patient records.”

Businesses using Canvas, insisted Stevens, will become more productive and efficient, while securing its information. Meanwhile, costs will be slashed with the removal of administrative overheads, data-capture errors, and the reduction of field staff travel.

The business switch to paperless, added Stevens, simply mirrors the societal shift from analog to digital. Consumers, with their tablets, smartphones and mp3 players, have already heralded the digital age. “Business always follows,” the Canvas exec averred. “I can do everything on Canvas that I can do in the office, and I can do it right here on my smartphone.”

The old way of having physical paper “digitized” by scanning them is outmoded and proves wasteful and time-consuming. Now, said Stevens, businesses can do all these at once. Data collection is instantaneous, while affording “things that can’t be done in the paper world,” like making changes on forms in real time and having the changes reflect in the whole system. As it saves time and labor, Canvas frees up manpower for other tasks.

Perhaps the most compelling business reason for choosing Canvas is, of course, the savings. Steven cited an Australian company that realizes savings of A$60,000 annually because of the online platform.

Canvas, he continued, doesn’t entail additional IT infrastructure or even IT knowledge. Users can even choose from more than 14,000 pre-built forms across 30 different vertical markets in an “application store.” There’s no coding knowledge necessary.

“For any business that does anything with paper, we can drive their business for them. Through a couple of simple steps, we can make them more productive, efficient and more secure with their data,” remarked Stevens.

Head of business applications for Globe IG JD Montelibano revealed that enrollment in Canvas costs P500 per user, which gives unlimited forms and submissions. Conversion into Canvas is free for the first two forms, with succeeding forms ranging from P1,500 to P10,000 per form (one-time charge). Custom-made forms are available for P8,000 to P65,000 each (also one-time charge).

Inevitably, government offices come to mind as foremost examples of paper-laden institutions. Canvas could presumably lend its expertise most nicely to address that. Stevens, responding to a point raised by The Philippine STAR, said that Canvas already works with some state agencies in the US, United Kingdom, and Australia, and is open to exploring that very proposal.

Canvas is also very careful with security concerns. “We take data security very seriously. It’s paramount for us as it is for our customers… we have the highest level of security on our cloud storage.”

As for customer-specific data sovereignty concerns, Stevens reported to The STAR in a subsequent exclusive interview that the company can customize according to expectations.

“We offer unlimited cloud storage for all of our submissions, though we’ve had companies public and private come forward and say they don’t want the information held in a private cloud and (rather) in their own system. We do offer the capability to remove the data from our own cloud… but we do encourage to have it on our system as a back up at no additional cost,” he said.

Even at the account level, there is data security protection. Built-in security within company accounts are afforded by various access levels decided on and dictated by clients. In case you’re wondering, Canvas utilizes Amazon web services, and its data centers are in the US.

The public-sector space is one of the “fastest-growing sectors” in the Canvas portfolio, and Globe sees the logic in offering it to public-office domains. “We’re seeing this among our government agency clients – a move to digitize work forms, and we feel that Canvas is the right solution for it,” declared Lugtu.

The Canvas mobile business app runs on Android, iOS or Windows on smartphones, tablets, or laptops. For more information, visit canvas.globe.com.ph. E-mail [email protected] for a free 30-day trial.