Digitalisation and paperless transition maturity
Your paperless trajectory, measured by theme and turned into a costed action plan.
10 themes, a 5-level scale. And the action that moves each level to the next.
The framework’s 10 themes, already written from L1 to L5. One company, one business unit, or 300 at once.
Digitalisation and paperless transition maturity
10 themes, 5-level scale.
Nordhavn Industries
53 / 100
They measure their maturity with Datamensio
An example
This could be your situation.
Take one company as an example: three sites, three spreadsheets, no shared answer.
Nobody can consolidate.
Nordhavn Industries, 2,400 people in Hamburg, Lyon and Porto. A client asks where the group stands. Each site answers in its own spreadsheet, with its own scales.
Three weeks, a single base.
One Datamensio maturity framework · Digitalisation and paperless transition assessment launched across all three sites at once, from the managers’ interview notes. The framework was already written, its 10 themes and levels L1 to L5 too.
Two costs avoided before being committed.
A score of 53 out of 100, with the gap concentrated on three themes. The AI companion spotted that two actions duplicated those of another audit. The committee report took one sentence to request.
What it saved them
- 3sites measured on the same base, instead of three questionnaires to reconcile
- 2duplicate actions caught before the spend
- 1committee report, with no manual rework
These figures are an example. They could be yours.
The standard imposes processes. Datamensio says where you stand.
01
The framework is already written
Themes, questions and levels L1 to L5, all written. You do not start from an empty spreadsheet.
02
The score lands the same day
Online, by self-assessment link or in interview. Theme by theme, comparable over time.
03
The gap becomes a costed plan
Every step up carries its action. The AI prioritises on expected effect, not on the order of the standard.
04
Progress can be demonstrated
Campaign after campaign, against your target and against your own past. That is what your board asks for.
The maturity scale
One level, the next, and the action that links the two.
It is this mechanism, a level, a level above it, and the action linking the two, that turns a finding into a trajectory.
Are document approval workflows carried out end to end in electronic form?
- N1
Approvals are done by printing, handwritten signature and physical transmission or scanning. No electronic workflow is in place.
- N2
A few electronic workflows exist for targeted documents, on the initiative of isolated teams. Paper remains the default route elsewhere.
- N3
The main document types have a documented and used electronic approval workflow. Workaround printing occurs only occasionally.
- N4
All approval workflows within scope are electronic, with configured delegations, traceability of approvals and automatic reminders. Exceptions are justified and logged.
- N5
Workflows are reviewed periodically based on measured timeframes and user feedback, with documented tracking of simplifications made.
Action to move from L2 to L3
Select the three most frequent document types, formalise their approval workflow in the electronic approval tool, remove the paper version of the template and check usage at the following quarter’s process review.
« With Datamensio, we meet our objectives far more efficiently. The ERDF inspection services and our supervising ministry particularly appreciated an approach that gives them reliable data. »
Director, CCI 94CCI Île-de-France
« We believe this is the most suitable solution to scale our transformation project and measure impact according to our needs. »
Maja SucekChief Operating Officer, Interreg Danube
Rarely on its own
Frameworks combine. Put several together to cover your business, or have the AI write yours.
Take your first measurement
What this framework covers
The framework covers the entire information lifecycle within the organisation: capture and scanning of incoming documents, natively digital creation, electronic circulation and approval, signature, retention, evidentially valid archiving, and controlled destruction. It also assesses the business processes that generate paper, from purchase order to invoice, from employee file to customer file, from meeting minutes to quality procedures. Each theme is scored on a five level maturity scale, from the absence of practice to a piloted and reviewed practice.
In practice, digitalisation rarely progresses evenly. A finance department may have removed paper from its supplier flows while HR still prints every contract, and a plant keeps its logs on paper for traceability reasons. The questions that keep coming up are concrete: which processes still generate paper, and for what exact reason, legal, technical or cultural? Are scanned documents genuinely admissible as evidence, or merely stored? Who decides retention periods, and on what basis?
One piece of context has changed things in France: business to business electronic invoicing is becoming mandatory according to a timetable set by the authorities, with reception required for all VAT registered companies followed by issuance phased in by company size. Many organisations treat this as an isolated accounting project. It is in fact an accelerator for the entire trajectory: a third party reference data foundation, structured flow management, electronic archiving, document governance. One frequent confusion is also worth clearing up: paperless is not the scanning of existing paper, it is the elimination of its issuance at source.
The maturity assessment does not ask whether a requirement has been met. It places each practice on a progressive scale and points to the action that moves it up to the next level. A management team can then decide what falls under tooling, what falls under change management and what falls under document governance, rather than treating digitalisation as a single large IT project. The score by theme makes the trade off discussable in committee, backed by figures.
The framework is ready to use in Datamensio and adapts to your context. AI adjusts the themes, rewords the questions to fit your sector and refines the levels according to the CMMI method, or builds a variant from your own procedures and process maps. Results can be compared across business units and over time.
Reference standard: Datamensio maturity framework · Digitalisation and paperless transition
The themes assessed
Document strategy and governance
Existence of a formalised trajectory, identified sponsor, document policy, roles and responsibilities, dedicated budget, alignment with the transformation programme.
Mapping of paper flows
Inventory of documents produced and received, printing volumes, identification of originating processes, justification for retaining each paper flow.
Capture and scanning
Handling of incoming mail, scanning quality, data recognition and extraction, indexing, coordination between residual paper flows and digital flows.
Natively digital processes
Electronic forms, capture at source, elimination of reprinting, redesign of processes rather than like for like transposition.
Electronic signature and approval
Digitalised approval workflows, signature levels used, electronic approval workflow tool, delegations, traceability of approvals.
Electronic document management
Filing plan, metadata, versioning, access rights, search, actual usage rate of storage spaces compared with informal sharing.
Archiving and evidential value
Retention periods, retention schedule, integrity and timestamping, electronic archiving, final disposition and traceable destruction.
Invoicing and transactional flows
Digitalisation of orders, delivery notes and invoices, structured formats, preparation for the electronic invoicing timetable, exchanges with third parties.
Change management and adoption
Team training, manager support, handling resistance, mobile equipment, measurement of actual adoption.
Measurement, frugality and continuous improvement
Paper consumption and printing indicators, digital storage footprint, periodic reviews, lessons learned, updating of the trajectory.
A short version of the framework is available for the online self-assessment.
Frequently asked questions
Does this assessment lead to certification?
No, and that is not its purpose. Digitalisation is not a certifying framework. The assessment measures a maturity level by theme and produces the roadmap towards the target level.
What is the difference between a maturity assessment and a project stocktake?
A stocktake describes the current situation at a given moment. The maturity assessment places each practice on a progressive scale and links each level to the action that moves it up. The result is comparable over time and across business units.
How long does the assessment take?
The short version takes 20 to 30 minutes to complete. The full version, in collaborative mode with several contributors, generally spans one to two weeks, with most of the time spent gathering input from the departments concerned.
Can the framework be adapted to our sector?
Yes. The themes, questions and levels can all be modified, and AI generates a variant from your procedures or process maps. A manufacturer, a bank and a local authority do not assess the same document flows.
Does the assessment cover electronic invoicing?
One theme is dedicated to it, from purchase order to invoice, including structured formats and exchanges with third parties. It intersects with archiving and document governance in the roadmap, which avoids treating the subject as an accounting silo.
How can several entities be compared with each other?
The same framework is rolled out to each business unit, scores are compared by theme and a cross-cutting roadmap consolidates the assessments. AI groups recurring actions to avoid funding the same workstream ten times over.
Is technical expertise required to answer?
The questions concern practices and processes, not tool configuration. A process owner or project manager can answer them. Collaborative mode allows technical or legal questions to be assigned to the right contributor.
Where is the data hosted?
In France, with OVH, backed up with Scaleway. No transfer outside the European Union. The AI models used can be selected, including from European providers.