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UK businesses are losing an estimated £2 billion pounds a year
due to "document wastage", the inefficient and sometimes
unnecessary printing of work-related and personal materials in
offices, and the hotel and restaurant sector is one of the big
losers, a new Europe-wide study by mailstream technology specialist
Pitney Bowes reveals.
The UK's hotel and restaurant industry presents a major opportunity
for document production savings: £74 million a year based on the
2008/9 figures. Across Europe, hotels and restaurants stand to reap
cost savings of up to £296 million, the Pitney Bowes study
shows.
According to the report, UK firms could have saved an estimated
£2,159 billion on printing costs in 2008/9, up from £1.95
billion in 2006, if they had implemented more cost-effective document
printing policies. The most costly UK industry in terms of document
wastage is retail, at an estimated £688m a year.
The report also found that, at a time when companies are looking to
cut spending in the face of a recession, businesses in major European
markets are costing themselves an estimated £13 billion a year
by failing to adequately manage rising workplace printing costs - a
trend it dubs "document wastage". The white paper, Counting
the Cost of "Document Wastage" in Europe, pulls together
industry and corporate data from across Western Europe, including
teleresearch from European Top 1000 companies and figures from EU and
governmental organisations.
In the report, Pitney Bowes points out that, typically, colour
printing run through a centralised facility can be done at a tenth of
the cost of the output from a desktop device. By utilising print
management software, implementing controls, monitoring output and
reorganising document production equipment to run this activity
though a centralised facility, companies could cut overall costs in
this area by 10% to 30%.
Pitney Bowes' research showed that the spread in recent years of
high-bandwidth communications and its attendant capability to send
large attachments, along with the growth of email and web usage, has
actually increased printing in most offices as employees print much
of the information they receive and find online. This trend has been
accompanied by the widespread use of desktop colour printers - the
most expensive form of office printing.
In addition, the study found that 50% of UK firms allow employees to
use printers and photocopiers for personal purposes and, of those,
57% did not monitor such usage.
Richard Thompson, Managing Director Pitney Bowes, says: "In our
own experience, we have seen that at least 75% of the businesses we
work with have no strategy for dealing with document output - despite
the fact that this has become a growing business cost.
"We've found that even the smallest companies can achieve
dramatic savings if they bring their printing and document production
under tighter control.
"Even in centralised, high-volume document production
facilities, it is possible for companies to cut costs and make these
more efficient - for instance by combining administrative, customer
service and promotional output volumes and printing on lower-cost
equipment.
"With companies facing a tough economic climate at the moment,
every business - from the corporate giant to the SME - is looking for
ways to improve returns and cut production costs. Eliminating
'document wastage' is one straightforward way of achieving better
cost efficiency and getting a healthier return on investment in
office print facilities." |
