Research conducted by the centre for economics and business research (cebr) in 2009 revealed that businesses across Europe could save $5,400 million annually by bringing in-house the printing of a broad range of business collateral. According to the survey, the introduction of better print management techniques would have an even greater impact on the corporate bottom line, with potential savings of up to $19,600 million.

However, the new study, carried out by OKI a year down the line, demonstrates that many companies are yet to reap the rewards of printing in-house and managing their printing more efficiently. Equally, rather than transitioning to in-house printing, the majority of companies are continuing to purchase materials such as business cards, compliment slips, brochures and banners from third party specialist print houses. Moreover, too many organisations still lack a basic printing policy for staff, covering such issues as restricting the use of colour or ensuring that double-sided printing is employed wherever possible.

Only 24% of survey respondents said they had this kind of policy in place   And even when specific ‘think before you print’ email disclaimers are published (only 32% of respondents say their companies have these), they are not uniformly enforced and adopted across the business.

Benefits Within Reach

The good news is that the savings highlighted in the cebr report are credible and achievable, without huge investment or turning existing business operations upside down

The latest affordable and easy-to-use print solutions enable any business to produce professional-quality materials in-house, saving money and inventory.  Multi-function printers (MFPs) including print/copy/scan/ fax capability are becoming increasingly recognised as a more efficient and cost-effective way to meet the office’s print requirements.

SMEs stand to benefit more than most from making the switch to smarter printing due to their strong focus on efficient business operations.  Print vendors can support this focus by delivering a powerful combination of free in-the-box software utilities and cost-effective A4 and A3 printing.

By giving SMEs the flexibility to bring their printing in-house, this approach enables them to drive efficiencies by eliminating wastage. Companies invariably print more than they need when they outsource jobs, usually in order to get the most cost-effective deal available. The excess, typically 20% of the total print job, is often wasted.

Today, it is increasingly important from both a cost-saving and a green IT perspective to improve the ‘utilisation ratio’ when printing. Producing documents and brochures on-demand, using a combination of in-house printers and in-the-box software to customise them to the organisation’s precise needs, is a sure-fire way of cutting costs, improving productivity and reducing waste.
It is also critical that the whole organisation adopts a culture of smarter printing. How many times do you read on the bottom of emails “please don’t print this email unless you absolutely need to”. This simple measure - locally enforced - is the first step to making positive attempts to reduce the impact on the environment. However, to make a lasting difference, the achievement of this objective should be part of an organisation-wide drive for printing that is more efficient and a corresponding reduction in waste.

Much of this comes down to a process of education. Users can be trained to cut paper wastage further by always using print preview, for example, or by using a web print utility to ensure each web page fits on one side of paper. In addition, many SMEs are unaware that there are additional measures they can take to reduce waste.  Simply by using double-sided printing, for example, they can at a stroke cut paper use by up to 50 per cent.

Finally, though in tough economic times the principal focus is on operational efficiencies and cost-savings, we should not lose sight of the fact that printing smarter in this way will also have a valuable positive impact on corporate environmental performance.  And, as the latest OKI findings show, firms will not have to work hard to generate support from their employees, as they are already substantially ‘greener’ at home than in the office.