By adopting paperless work processes, organisations can stop printing costs from spiralling out of control.
It’s been decades since the concept of the paperless office was first put forward. In the time since, the associated benefits have grown ever broader, with ideas like remote working becoming everyday realities that couldn’t have been foreseen back in the mid-20th century.
However, that’s not to say that the original driving forces for going paperless aren’t still relevant. One of these is the cost of printing documents.
If a recent survey carried out by Oki Systems UK is anything to go by, most businesses still have a serious printing habit – even despite the last few years’ economic climate having done much to encourage them to reduce overheads.
The company asked 2,000 office workers how many documents – if any – they printed over the course of an average working day. Fewer than one in ten (eight per cent) answered that they didn’t print anything, meaning that for an overwhelming majority of respondents, committing documents to paper is part of the daily routine.
These habits weren’t limited to a few pages here and there, either. Nearly half (45 per cent) of workers claimed they printed at least ten documents every day, with a sizeable 15 per cent of respondents admitting their daily paper footprint exceeded 50 pages.
Surprisingly, it didn’t seem like these office workers’ employers were doing anything to stop printing costs spiralling out of control. Only 27 per cent of those polled said that their businesses had actively-enforced policies in place to limit the number of documents each worker might print in a single day.
The cost of printing is well established, perhaps best demonstrated in the last few months by a Policy Exchange report that suggested the British government could save as much as £70 billion by going paperless.
Obviously, a single private business can’t be compared to the entire public sector, but the figure is still phenomenally high. The question is, then, how much is your organisation spending on printing?
To discuss how an electronic document management system could make your workplace more cost-efficient, consider getting in touch with Dajon today and we’ll talk through your requirements.