The impact of dematerialisation on businesses eco-systems

In 2007 the European Commission presented the Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the European Union, with the aim to work with Member States in order to cut 25% of administrative burdens on businesses by 2012. In this framework, a set of interesting actions can be summarised into the so called dematerialization, intended as the substitution of the physical business documentation with digital files and archives that are able to provide better performances in terms of efficiency, as well as the same legal requisites of the documents in the paper format. For example, the Council Directive 2010/45/EU introduced the e-invoicing that should enable annual cost savings for businesses at up to EUR 18 billion. The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of the dematerialisation on businesses in terms of standards adoption, savings, organisational issues and also environmental opportunities.