Ukrainian businesses become more eco-friendly, economical, and adaptive amid war
Recently, Kyiv hosted the fourth national forum, "Business without Paper," where the participants discussed the problems of combining and saving resources and moving towards an ecosystemic approach, Rubryka reports.
What is the problem?
Ukraine uses 2 billion paper documents and more than 100 billion paper checks per year.
Going paperless in life, business, and at the government level will impact digital transformation, increase productivity, ecology, and data security, and significantly save time and money.
Now, companies in Ukraine are striving to combine and save resources. They seek ways to make work processes more progressive, flexible, and easy, becoming ecosystemic, meaning promoting conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.
This progress became especially noticeable during the full-scale war, which, under sad circumstances, became another driver of digital changes in business.
What is the solution?
Representatives of Ukrainian companies discussed this at the fourth All-Ukrainian paperless business forum, which took place on October 26-27 in Kyiv. They identified preserving not only financial and natural resources but also human resources as one of the main modern trends.
How does it work?
For the first time since the beginning of the war, the forum gathered offline more than 400 participants and market leaders from various industries.
More than 30 speakers — representatives of the state, businesses, and public organizations — talked about their experience in implementing electronic document management, qualified electronic signatures, software PRO, electronic goods and transport invoices, and global and Ukrainian trends in digital change.
"For a huge number of people, Diia gov app and digital documents are no longer an option, but a basic thing that allows you to solve certain tasks with only a smartphone. You don't have to worry if you forget your documents at home," said Mstislav Bannik, head of electronic services development at the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. "Today, the Diia app has 30 available services and has 19.6 million users. This is approximately 75% of the entire adult population of Ukraine."
Digitization helps make work faster and more efficient, giving employees more opportunities and time to learn new things instead of wasting resources on filling out, matching, moving from place to place, and sending and storing pieces of paper.
"The paper is like a measure of the efficiency of you, your business, and your country. We see a trend that the attitude towards electronic documents is changing positively in the country," said Anton Skokov, head of digital business solutions service "Vchasno." "After all, it is convenient! If you, as an employee, look at your desk now and see printed pieces of paper there, it means that your efficiency is not yet at 100%. Digitize and save time for more important things."
The global market for electronic documents will grow ten times by 2030 because, in most countries, there is no longer a question of why we need to abandon papers.
"Digital services make it possible to optimize business processes. During two years of digitalization in our company, we saved about 10,000 packs of paper, which is approximately 600 saved trees," said Victoria Pokhilenko, a specialist in the administration department and office management digitalization at Lifecell.
"In the period from January to October 2023, our company signed almost 23,000 documents, which allowed us to save more than UAH 2 million," said Olha Petrenko, legal advisor of Louis Dreyfus Company Ukraine.
Besides business purposes, this year's event also had a charitable purpose. In partnership with the Serhiy Prytula Foundation and the NEST project, the organizers fundraised for a modular house for a family from Makariv who lost their home due to the Russian occupation.
At the end of the forum, a charity raffle and auction with ten unique lots took place. Participants could purchase a flag with Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi's signature, boxing gloves signed by Vitalii Klychko, and poster-photo from "Azovstal" with the signature of Dmytro Kozatskyi, callsign "Orest."
All profits from the sale of tickets to the forum, from the charity raffle and auction held at the event, will be directed to realizing this goal. The event collected ₴748,000.
Over the past 20 years, paper consumption has increased by more than 25%.
As Rubryka reported, the NGO "Ukrainian Center for Promotion of Investments and Trade," supported by the USAID Program "Competitive Economy of Ukraine," announced workshops to support women entrepreneurs, which will be held online and offline.
