Towards the paperless office: best practices and exploration of enterprise rights management solutions for Ghanaian business processes

Date

2010-04

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Abstract

Information Technology continues to have a great impact on the way humans live and work. The business world is one of the aspects of life that has experienced this phenomenon. This advancement of technology has contributed to the growing use of paper in the office place which has had tremendous impact on the environment. However several new technologies have been developed to eliminate paper outright or at least reduce the amount of paper in the office environment. This phenomenon known as the 'paperless office' has become desirable but difficult objective to achieve. The objective of this research is to suggest general best practices and guidelines for implementing paperless office solutions and secondly to find out whether enterprise rights management systems can contribute to the paperless office solution. The research uses a case study methodology to analyze data on business practices. The results of the study showed that stakeholder buy-in, availability and actual use of IT resources and paperless office implementation project leadership have a strong bearing on the success or otherwise of the implementation of paperless office solution. The research also confirms findings in the literature that enterprise rights management does not provide a direct paperless benefit but rather can serve as a security enhancement that allows electronic documents to be protected from unauthorized access throughout the documents lifecycle.

Description

Thesis submitted to the Department of Computer Science, Ashesi University College, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Management Information Systems, April 2010

Keywords

Ghana, paperless office, office management

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