The Four Phases of Print Cost Savings

By Mark Altman - CEO, Altman Integrated Technologies Ltd
Many organisations have been aware for some time of the need to control the costs of print and copying. Usually this includes applying limits and rules around what some users can do and making everyone accountable. This typically re¬sults in a dramatic reduction in the number of printed pages by eliminating the waste associated with unwanted or acci¬dental printing.

This is good – but it’s only Phase 1 of the cost saving approach.

Some have jumped into using a managed service or click-charge based contract on their copiers and printers. The advantages are new equipment (faster, better quality output, more functional¬ity, lower cost per page) and more certainty on pricing and expenditure on consumables.

This is also good and we would refer to it as Phase 3. This is where

most people stop, thinking that the problem is solved, but you’ll notice

we’ve not covered Phase 2. So what is the missing phase? And what

additional phase is there beyond Phase 3?

PHASE 1 – Reduce the amount of pages produced

PHASE 2 – Reduce the amount of toner, ink and colour used

PHASE 3 – Reduce the amount of devices and reduce cost/page

PHASE 4 – Optimise your print and copy fleet
Let’s take a look at these phases in more detail...

PHASE 1

This is about reducing the amount of pages we produce, not by stopping legitimate printing, but by eliminating accidental or unwanted jobs. Ultimately making people more accountable for, and aware of, what they printing. Typical initiatives to support this include:

• Monitoring individual users print volumes and costs incurred

• Stopping accidental duplication of printing (repeated clicking of the print icon)

• Warning users what they are about to print before it goes to the printer

• Restricting the number of pages or copies that can be produced at one time

• Restricting the output of colour print jobs

• Restricting the types of documents being printed

• Enforcing the correct paper size and type of printing the printer understands

• Enforcing quotas based on value over a period of time

• Charging for printing, either entirely or on an excess basis

• Hold the printing in the queue until the user is ready to release it


PHASE 2

Once you have reduced the amount of pages being produced, the next phase focuses on reducing the amount of toner and ink that is used on each printed page.

As we know, so much of the output we generate is for internal use, individual use and often for draft purposes, so the potential to reduce the cost of each page we produce is significant. Ways to support this include:

• Specifying the amount of toner to be used for each printed page

• Enforcing the use of mono and/or duplex

• Enforcing policy by user, by device or by type of document

• Specifying different toner saving for text, graphics and images

Here’s some examples of policies that might be typically considered and enforced:

• Output on all but one or two selected devices to be forced to be printed in duplex

• All emails to be printed in duplex, mono and at 50% toner saving

• PowerPoint presentations printed on ink-jet devices to be forced to mono and at 30% toner saving on all content

• Smaller volume printers to be forced to use 40% toner saving on text content and 20% saving on images and graphic content

The latest technology can now deliver this functionality, providing savings of around 20% on standard text output without any perceptible difference. Because strict quality is not required on so much of what we produce the potential for reducing the use of toner, ink and colour is huge.

And because you can set policies based on different users, types of documents and devices – this flexibility ensures that where the highest quality of output is needed, this can still be achieved.

The key with this phase is that it is best done before Phase 3 – so that when you opt for the managed service approach your pricing will be lower and your savings amplified beyond what was previously possible. Remember once you are signed up for a managed service, the costs are fixed. You will pay for the wastage and overuse of toner that was in existence previously!

PHASE 3

This phase is about rationalising the number of devices, consolidating copiers, printers and scan¬ners and reducing your cost per page produced. This is achieved by utilising the latest technology for copying, printing and scanning. Replacing low volume, higher cost devices with larger capac¬ity, faster throughput and lower running cost devices. Usually this is achieved using the latest print engine and scanning technology and therefore provides an additional benefit of increased quality of the output.

This solution is often sold as a “managed service” where there is a fixed cost per page with dif¬ferent rates for mono and colour and different paper sizes. This is attractive as we have a known budgetable cost that includes no surprises – all hardware, software, toner and maintenance costs are generally included in the fee.

We’ve now reduced the amount of pages produced, we’ve reduced the amount of toner and col¬our that’s used, we’ve fixed the price at a lower level and improved the speed and quality of the output … what more can we do? The next step is Phase 4.

PHASE 4

This is about optimising your fleet of printers and copiers by monitoring and reviewing how all your devices are performing in your organisation. Taking a centralised view across all devices enables adjustment of your fleet capacity and location of devices in line with the changing trends within your business.

The technology in this area uses a network based software agent that collects device statistics using SNMP, periodically uploading the data into a hosted “cloud” application that then provides access to the analysed data via a secure web based, end user management portal.

Through the portal you can report on device usage and costs – but also see where some devices are being used beyond their stated capacity or where some are under utilised. The optimiser feature then reports on where some printers can be switched or replaced by others at lower cost taking into account purchase and running costs.

Through the contract management capability, you can set up your managed service contract pric¬es and it will provide an audit of all costs which can be used to compare with your provider’s bill¬ing information, and against other known contracts available from other vendors and suppliers.

This is an excellent way to gear up for the negotiation of your managed service renewal fee – or give you a great starting point for evaluating managed service providers.

AND BEYOND …

The Phases outlined address the scope of how much is printed, what is printed, the quality of the output and the speed and efficiency of the devices. Beyond this scope we advocate building on this further with the following initiatives:

• Scoreboard who is printing the most by user/department, mono/colour breakdown, A3/A4, duplex/simplex etc to increase accountability further, drive cost-awareness and achieve environmental targets.

• Examine the document workflow in your organisation – explore the provision of elec-tronic document management and job submission.

• Execute an awareness and training programme for staff on document management and encouraging scanning and electronic faxing.

• Explore the use of tablet devices for reading documents.

SUMMARY

By taking the FOUR PHASE approach, you will save significant volumes of output and associated costs of producing them. The Four Phases are sequential and inter-dependent – you need to do each one in order to achieve the maximum benefit.

If you’d like more information on any of the technologies referred to in this document, you can contact the author directly: Mark Altman – mark.altman@altman.co.uk – t: 0113 273 0300.

About the author:

Mark Altman is CEO of Altman Integrated Technologies Ltd, a UK based software house specialising in delivering cost savings in various areas of a company’s IT infrastructure and operations – including print, copy, email, web and voice.

Web site: http://www.altman.co.uk/.
Blog: http://www.altman.co.uk/blog
Green policy: http://www.altman.co.uk/files/greenpolicy.pdf

Blog’s view on Mark Altman’s paper above.

Mark has some very good points and suggestions for more efficient use of resources. These tend to use the software and systems his company sell, which are well proven. However similar results can be obtained from other software and systems.

Mark will agree that greater and more substantial savings can be obtained with an organization document strategy, including printing and photocopying procedures that is endorsed by the senior management of the company.

DIGITAL PRINT - THE FINAL PIECE OF THE JIGSAW

Although Purbrooks have deservedly gained a reputation for high quality litho printing, the litho process does not always suit every project. If a print run is particularly short, it may be more cost-effective to produce a job digitally. There should be no compromise to the finished look of the job.
There are many benefits to digital printing:
• Proofs can be supplied, produced on the finished material (which would be prohibitively expensive on a litho press).
• Turnaround time can be quicker.
• The option exists to produce only a few advance copies of a project if the artwork has not been finalised.
• Variable data can be incorporated in the printed literature. This opens up new promotional (personalisation, i.e. names, photos, special dates, QR and barcodes, etc.) and transactional (such as personalisation with billing information, with data in graphic forms, i.e. pie charts, bar charts, etc.)

The downsides are that:
• Digital printing becomes expensive on longer runs.
• Spot colours can normally only be represented out of 4 colour process (CMYK).
• Metallic inks cannot be used.
• Finishing processes that involve heat, such as gold foil blocking, cannot be used.

Reproduced and based on an article by kind permission of Martin Stern
Purbrooks.
Gresham Way, Wimbledon Park
London SW19 8ED
T: 020 8944 3200 F: 020 8944 3237
e: martin@purbrooks.co.uk
w: www.purbrooks.co.uk

When to go Digital?

Below is an extract from the research and practical experience of Martin Stern of Purbrooks limited and some information on the point at which offset litho and digital printing cross over so that best value and value for money can always be measured and assured. Purbrooks are a member of the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) and the BPIF teach and promote best practice.


There are two main reasons for choosing to print digitally: speed of turnaround and low cost on short runs.


The quick turnaround of digital print is due to the fact that the ink on toner-based machines dries instantly, even on uncoated stocks, so there is no delay in the printing process.


It is always best practice to have a hard copy proof, to ensure all colours are correct, and there are no problems in the PDF or using your chosen printing substrate or method.


This is because:
• the shade, colour, texture and reflection of paper, card, plastic, etc. varies with batches and processes.
• as toner/ink is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, (CMYK) and uses reflective light and some images on paper, card, plastic, etc. may limit contrast and look flat, dull or enhance contrast, colour or brilliance.
• as a screen view is projected light in Red, Green & Blue (RGB).
• A PDF may not have all the fonts embedded in the file, so the software may substitute another font.


The short run nature of digital jobs does allow the quicker option of approving just a PDF before printing, further speeding up the turnaround time, but is very hard to match a screen view with a hardcopy print view.


A digital press does not use printing plates and there is a much smaller machine make-ready time to charge out or recover.


Some software systems like Quite Imposing http://www.quite.com/imposing/ can cut down studio time for page imposition. This can be done on the fly or with templates, so there is less overhead to recover for design and bleeding layouts.


Unlike offset litho, a digital press often needs very few sheets of paper in the set-up process, which again is a clear saving that can be passed on to the customer. This means that on short runs digital can be a very cost-effective way of producing a job.


However, as the quantity increases, digital printing eventually becomes more expensive than litho due to the slower running speed and the “click charges” levied by the manufacturer of the press.


The precise point at which litho becomes cheaper depends on a number of factors within the specification of the job, primarily document size and pagination.


The graphs on this page illustrate the cross-over point for three projects and it can be seen that the quantity at which this occurs varies from 350 copies for a 8pp A4 to 1000 copies for 2pp A4.

Purbrooks are happy to advise on the most appropriate process for a particular project and can quote for both litho and digital to assist clients in deciding on the balance between quality, speed and price.


Purbrooks point out that it is important that the quality of finishing should be identical whatever the printing process as this will differentiate some printers’ finished digital printing from that of their competitors.


Reproduced and based on an article by kind permission of Martin Stern
Purbrooks.
Gresham Way, Wimbledon Park
London SW19 8ED
T: 020 8944 3200 F: 020 8944 3237
e: martin@purbrooks.co.uk
w: www.purbrooks.co.uk

New KM Bizhub 36 & 42 A4 mono MFD for occasional A3 use

I think this is a great idea. Most of us print, copy fax and scan A4, so to have an A4 machine for most day-t-day business use, but to have the added facility of A3 for occasional use via the paper bypass tray is brilliant so, the footprint of the machine can be kept small and the speed fast, with a low cost of ownership and whole-life running costs

Konica Minolta Business Solutions (UK) announce the launch of two new A4, 36 and 42 ppm mono multifunctional devices (MFDs) offering all the feature rich functionality of the company’s award winning bizhub range, including print, colour scanning, copy and optional fax. For organisations requiring occasional A3 output the new multifunctional devices provide A3 print output via the bypass tray.

Technology Highlights
Print, copy, colour scan, plus optional fax and A3 capabilities; up to 36 and 42 pages/min.

Konica Minolta technologies
Simitri HD polymerised toner, Emperon print controller and PageScope applications.

Optional finishing capabilities
Embedded finisher for corner and 2-point stapling.

Eco-friendly
Minimised environmental impact with standard duplex and Simitri HD toner with biomass; Blue Angel and Energy Star certified.

A3 future proof
The A4 MFD device is capability of printing and copying A4 via the internal paper trays, but can take A3 paper via the bypass tray to save space

GreenPrint Enterprise Products

Powerful Tools to Measure & Reduce Enterprise Print Costs
Managing print consumption in an enterprise environment represents a huge savings opportunity. But the effort can be tricky. Different departments and users have different print habits and needs. Different print devices have different capabilities and cost profiles. GreenPrint offers a suite of software solutions that enable you to tackle print consumption with a phased, measurable and verifiable approach for each unique part of your organization.

GreenPrint Analytics GreenPrint Advisor GreenPrint preView+
GreenPrint Analytics is a powerful tool that measures print volume for both on- and off-network printers, identifies cost savings opportunities and enables better print management over time. GreenPrint Advisor uses a simple color coding system to help your end-users identify low cost printer options. Advisor then gently guides them to shift print volume to those devices whenever possible. GreenPrint preView+ is a unique interactive print preview feature that helps your end-users identify and eliminate print waste before it is printed, dramatically reducing print volume and associated costs!
Learn More
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Note: GreenPrint Analytics is offered as a stand-alone product offering or as part of a bundle with GreenPrint Advisor and GreenPrint preView+.

GreenPrint Analytics
Powerful Reporting Provides the Foundation for Enterprise Print Savings
A natural first step…GreenPrint Analytics is a powerful print measurement and analysis tool that can help your organization track print consumption of both on and off-network printers, identify immediate cost savings opportunities and enable you to more efficiently manage your print operations over time. Analytics is offered as a stand alone product offering or as part of a bundle with GreenPrint's other product modules.

Easy to Deploy, Non-Disruptive and Comprehensive
•Software application can be centrally distributed to all computers in your organization
•Completely invisible to end users – no employee interaction is required
•Turnkey, web-hosted data service – no servers to provision, no databases to manage
•Analytics is highly secure – via Amazon's EC2/S3 hosting service
•Data on demand – simply log in to your secure data server to view print data real time
Actionable, Accurate and Detailed Data
PRINT VOLUME REPORTS

•Total pages printed (includes networked and locally connected devices)
•Highest volume users
•Applications printed most/least
•Reports for departments, groups and/or users
PRINTER INVENTORY REPORTS

•Complete inventory of active printers
•Printers used most/least
•Identification of costly printers (i.e., USB devices)
•Searchable database (e.g., by model or device type)
SAVINGS OPPORTUNITIES

•Actionable print data enables savings of up to 30%
•Reports on volume printed to costly printers
•Shift volume from costly printers to lower cost devices
•Eliminate costly or unnecessary printers
Start with Analytics…Then You Have Upgrade Options!
•GUIDE users to low cost printers with GreenPrint Advisor
•OPTIMIZE savings by reducing print waste with GreenPrint preView+

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GreenPrint Advisor
Guide Users to Your Lowest Cost Printers

Have you ever asked your employees to print to low cost printers, only to find that a week or two later they are back to their old bad habits? GreenPrint is well aware of this challenge, and has addressed this issue with the introduction of GreenPrint Advisor.

Advisor is a low touch, intuitive interface that quickly GUIDES users to your lowest cost or most desirable printers (prior to printing) with communication that is as easy to understand as a traffic light:

•Green is a good low cost printer to use
•Yellow might not be the best printer choice
•Red is a high cost printer that should only be used if business conditions dictate
Advisor Provides an Array of Smart Print Options
Advisor is fast and requires minimal user interaction. Advisor’s key benefits include:

•Drives awareness of print costs
•Saves $$/££ by guiding users to low cost printers
•Reinforces good print habits
•Provides optional path to waste reduction through preView+
•Provides opportunity to electronically archive documents
Full Integration with GreenPrint Analytics and preView+
Advisor is an option that is fully integrated with GreenPrint Analytics. Print per page cost data is imported into Advisor from the administrative console, and allows you to easily group printers by similar cost attributes into the Green, Yellow, and Red categories described above. Analytics accurately tracks and measures print volume and associated costs for each of the color coded categories. Reports can be generated for your entire organization, for groups or departments, or even for individual users.

Advisor also provides a simple, optional path for users to interact with GreenPrint preView+, which allows users to identify print waste and eliminate it BEFORE it goes to the printer.
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GreenPrint preView+
Interactive Preview Helps Eliminate Print Waste & Reduce Volume
PreView+ Highlights
•Easy, intuitive user interface
•Helps users highlight and eliminate unnecessary pages, images and text
•One click to duplex, PDF or print in B&W
•Visibly presents print costs for each print job
•Visibly presents savings as users eliminate unwanted pages
•Provides detailed individual print reports that track costs and savings over time
•All individual data is aggregated by GreenPrint Analytics
Eliminating wasted pages at the printer can only be done by providing the right tool at the PC. After all, each of us is responsible for creating our own print jobs and ultimately for sending them to the printer. All too often, those print jobs have unnecessary content ranging from whole pages to select images or pieces of text. Frequently, we aren’t even aware that the waste is present, like printing from the internet and getting that annoying extra page with just a url or a few lines of unnecessary text. But just as frequently, we print unnecessary content because we are in a hurry, because there’s no good way to get rid of stuff we don’t need, or simply because we’re lazy. Whatever the reasons for print waste, one thing is certain: your organization is paying for it, and so is the environment.

preView+ Helps Users Deal with their Own Print Waste
GreenPrint preView+ is an option that helps your end-users identify and eliminate print waste before it is printed, dramatically reducing print volume and associated costs! preView+ makes it fast and easy for your employees to see what they are about to print, confirm that it is what they want, and to quickly eliminate any unwanted or unnecessary content. preView+ is an optional tool that users invoke how and when they see fit. However, GreenPrint Analytics will track how much your users are saving, enabling you to see who is doing a good job of managing their printing, as well as to see those who still have room for improvement.

PreView+ Provides GreenPrint not only provides the tools to help your end users reduce print waste, but preView+ also provides instant print data so that each person in your organization can understand how much they have printed, how much they have saved, and the corresponding $$/££ and environmental costs. This data helps people appreciate that printing is an expensive cost center for your company and encourages them to their part to be as efficient as possible.
See: http://www.printgreener.com/1/greenprint-enterprise

Rethinking Printing - Kyocera Environmental Survey 2011

Key Stats Summary

• 71% of office workers consider themselves environmentally conscious

• 14% of workers have increased the amount of printing they do in the last year

• Workers print 6,000 sheets a year on average, of which 3,720 are wasted or unnecessary

• Only 25% of companies have a formal, written print policy

• 21% of IT time is spent dealing with printer issues

• 62% have audited their print services in the past year

• Nearly half (48%) of workers claim to have no knowledge of their companies’ carbon offset policy

Is this finally the dawn of the paperless office?

Kyocera environmental survey finds major reductions in print volumes for the first time

Kyocera's annual environmental survey has this year discovered a significant drop in the number pages office-based workers print each year. Since the company first carried out the survey in its current form in 2007, the average number of pages printed by an office based worker has remained static at 40 sheets per day, equating to 10,000 sheets per year. In 2011 the average number of pages printed per year has dropped by 40% to 6000. This dramatic and sudden decrease could signal that, after many false starts, the long-heralded dawn of the paperless office is finally at hand.

Despite this drop in the number of pages printed, the proportion that are "wasted" each year has remained static at 66%. "Wasted" pages include those that could have been printed double-sided, those printed in error, and those printed but never collected from the device.

Commenting on the trends, Tracey Rawling Church, Director of Brand and Reputation at Kyocera Mita UK said: "This significant drop in print volumes indicates a sea-change in UK business. Anecdotally there appears to be far more confidence in mobile devices and electronic forms, and a willingness to rely on electronic information rather than having a piece of paper to hand. The proportion of wasted prints remains high, however, and the research showed that 72% of respondents felt that responsibility for reducing print volumes lies with the individual, with 44% admitting that they could print less than they currently do. This indicates a lack of awareness of the possibilities of automating reductions in print volumes by setting duplex functions as standard and applying print policy software."

Economic effects

For the second consecutive year it seems that the economic situation has had a neutral or positive effect on companies' environmental initiatives, with 45% of respondents stating that the economic downturn had either had no effect on their green plans, or had actually increased the focus on becoming more environmentally responsible and efficient.

Procurement

This year Kyocera Mita delved more deeply into the attitudes of procurement professionals towards "green" purchasing. The responses showed that despite 71% of organisations stating that they have a green procurement policy, only 1 in 4 procurement managers would reject a potential supplier based on failure to meet green criteria. The survey also showed that while a 75% of organisations ask questions about a supplier’s environmental credentials at the tender stage, only 18% carry out subsequent audits on suppliers following the tender award. Unsurprisingly, cost reduction remains the highest priority for 89% of procurement managers, with only 52% reporting a similar level of concern for environmental issues.
Tracey Rawling Church comments: “There seems to be a disconnect between policy and the day-to-day reality of purchasing. In my experience, procurement managers are targeted and rewarded on the basis of the cost savings that they achieve, so it’s not surprising that focus drifts away from a supplier’s environmental credentials.”

82% of respondents felt that waste reduction would be the primary benefit of taking environmental issues into account when selecting goods and services, while 80% believed that energy efficiency would improve. Only 46% anticipated that there would be lower costs.
Conclusions

Business technology is a major area of environmental concern. Too often, however, environmental action in the workplace take a back seat to concerns seen as more immediate, such as short-term cost savings. The current economic situation, which has given rise to a renewed emphasis on longer-term savings, has motivated increased emphasis on efficiency and related green concerns. Obstacles to more responsible green action in the workplace remain, however. These include ingrained habits (such as single-side printing and assigning employees their own printers), short-term planning (such as examining supplier efficiency at tender, but not after), and lack of joined-up action (such as not communicating existent offset schemes to environmentally-concerned employees). All of these are part of a larger, overarching issue: businesses are still not fully connecting their day-to-day green concerns to their long-term plans for business success.

This is particularly striking in the technological environment of 2011, in which the efficiency and sustainability benefits of green choices bring ever-clearer benefits to the bottom line. Businesses who ‘think green’ when making technology and policy choices have the opportunity to make a profit both for themselves and for the environment. In order to fully capitalise on the opportunity for green technology success, the most forward-looking businesses need to rethink their established ways of doing things. They need to:

• Consider centrally-managed policy change to combat habitual waste and actively promote more efficient alternatives. Consistency across the business, which comes from central management decisions, will insure that no ‘pockets of bad practice’ remain, and that the entire business benefits from the best green initiatives.

• Monitor their actions on an ongoing basis, to make sure that standards are being met, and that the business receives maximum benefits. This ongoing engagement includes technology purchases (which should be audited regularly) and consideration of other, possibly more efficient solutions, such as externally managed printing services and the cloud.

• Communicate across the business about what is being done, why it is being done, and how it could be done better. Businesses need to capitalise on the reservoirs of green concern and engagement within their business. They need to make sure that employees are aware of initiatives and able to contribute ideas for improvement, so that innovation can come from all levels.

Success in 2012 and beyond is about going beyond short-term efficiency measures and moving toward a truly green model of business technology. In the most innovative companies, the green concerns of management and staff are harnessed into a continual effort toward innovation. With the entire organisation engaged in continual improvement, both the bottom line and the environment benefit.

Rethinking Printing
Kyocera Environmental Survey 2011
Full report
http://www.kyoceramita.co.uk/index/kyocera_mita_environmental.-contextmargin-62577-File.cpsdownload.tmp/Executive%20Summary%20and%20Analysis.pdf

Rethinking Printing
Kyocera Environmental Survey 2011
PowerPoint
http://www.kyoceramita.co.uk/index/kyocera_mita_environmental.-contextmargin-27202-File.cpsdownload.tmp/Environmental%20Findings%202011%20FINAL.pdf

Rethinking Printing
Kyocera Environmental Survey 2011
Video
http://www.kyoceramita.co.uk/index/kyocera_mita_environmental.html

The Paper Free Office - dream or reality?

AIIM Market Intelligence undertook a report on The Paper Free Office between November 30th, 2011, and January 3rd, 2012.
477 individual members took the survey and below are the key findings, conclusions and recommendations.

The aiim research support the long held belief that even when data is born digital and used in a digital environment, it is often produced as a paper version in use and transit for adding other documents or information.
This paper version document of the digital data may be on hardcopy to facilitate an original paper based business process. That document will require physical, handing to acquire a signature or other hardcopy attachment, such as a photograph, photocopy of qualification or copy of identification document. All of these business processes can be performed digital. In most cases, the hardcopy document is then scanned as an image (without indexing metadata) to become a new digital copy of the original data with added information. In most cases, the paper based hardcopy is kept on-site and filed for future reference, which is a very inefficient business process.

Key Findings
• There is less paper floating around the office – especially in the biggest organizations. The consumption of paper and the number of photocopies is decreasing in 35% of organizations, whereas it is increasing in 32%. In the largest organizations, the net proportion of respondents posting a decrease is 15%.

• Electronic-only filing would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years. The average proportion of office space taken up by paper is now 15.3%, and it would drop to 7.4% with an all-electronic filing policy, a saving of nearly 8% in overall office costs.

• On average, 45% of documents that are scanned are 100% “born digital” – just as they came from the printer. And many of the rest would be all-digital if not for the added signatures.

• 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed. 31% of faxed invoices get printed and scanned back in. On average, 30% of invoices arrive as PDF attachments, and 15% as faxes.

• 41% of organizations in the survey are using some form of digital-mailroom, either as a centralized operation or distributed at branch offices. 4% are outsourced.

• 20% of organizations scan half or more of their inbound mail at or before entry. A further 20% are more likely to scan at the point-of-process, and 29% scan-to-archive after the process.

• Improved sharability and searchability is the biggest driver for investment in scanning and capture. Followed by improved productivity and reduced storage space.

• On average, respondents using scanning and capture consider that it improves the speed of response to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff by 6-times or more. 70% estimate an improvement of at least 3-times, and nearly a third (29%) see an improvement of 10-times or more.

• 42% of users have achieved a payback period of 12 months or less from their scanning and capture investments. 57% are posting a payback of 18-months or less.

• A net of 13% of respondents plan to increase their use of bureaus or document process outsource (DPO), particularly in Europe (net 21%). But only a net of 1% will be increasing their offshore activities.

• 38% of respondents have employees equipped to use portable devices to capture documents or forms when not at their desks. Over 14% are using portable scanners for forms and supporting documents. 6% are using smartphones or tablets, including 4% who use OCR to capture data at the device.

• Over half of those using portable devices capture signatures, either by scanning (30%), stylus (11%) or using a digital signature app (21%).

• Speed of data availability and keeping paper out of the process are given as the biggest advantages of mobile capture, followed by better data accuracy and fewer lost or incomplete forms.

• 12% of respondents are committed to a strategy of cloud deployment of capture – rising to 20% of the largest organizations. 18% overall have firmly decided against it and 39% are waiting for a company decision on cloud in general (27%), or capture specifically (12%).

• Spending predictions indicate a considerable increase in spend on capture software, including mobile capture and as a front-end to SharePoint. A net of 23% of responding organizations indicate increased spend for the next 12 months. Spend on scanners is set to be stable, while spend on outsourcing is set to decrease.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Paper-free, paper-less, less-paper…? Yes, it seems that some progress is being made, particularly in larger organizations. We looked at the physical space savings that this can produce, and an all-electronic filing policy could save nearly 8% of office space within 5 years. And there are, of course, environmental benefits associated with less paper, less photocopying and less printing.
But the big reason to head paper off at the door is to prevent it clogging up processes and to mobilize its content. Improved access and sharability to other staff, faster response to customers, and better process productivity are the three big gains. In particular, our respondents estimated that on average their use of scanning and capture improved the speed of response to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff by 6 times or more – a dramatic improvement to competitively in a world that is only too ready to publicize poor service. Funnelling incoming mail through a digital mailroom enhances this benefit, ensuring that all customer or supplier correspondence is immediately available to help desks, sales staff and teleworkers - and this concept lends itself to both in-house and outsourced provision.

Overall we saw a return on investment of 18 months or less for over half of our respondents.
We also found many ways in which paper leaks back into the office. Apart from the inevitable personal printing of emails, we found procedural shortcomings where PDF and faxed invoices are printed out – and then sometimes scanned in again; where scanning takes place at the end of the process rather than at the beginning; where documents are photocopied before scanning; and where documents that have been successfully scanned are stored in the office rather than being destroyed, or at least, warehoused.
Finally, we took a glimpse at the impact of the explosion in mobile devices and their increasing capability to scan and capture paper forms, or to provide direct data input to back-office processes.
Recommendations
• Audit your processes to see where paper slows throughput, adds process steps, or restricts transparency and reporting.

• In particular, examine your customer (or supplier or staff) response mechanisms to see if physical mailings or paper processing are slowing things down, restricting visibility, or paralleling electronic communications paths.

• Look at how physical handling of incoming mail site-by-site might better be centralized, processed in higher volume, and distributed electronically.

• If you are already using scanning, consider how much “closer to the door” you could be going electronic, and how that might transform who does the subsequent processing and where they might be located.

• Evaluate the latest technology for capturing data from forms and invoices, and look to process a higher proportion of your documents automatically.

• Consider using a bureau or DPO, especially if you are concerned about capital outlay, fluctuating volumes and overall risk. Don’t assume that basic DPO will be cheaper, but ensure that they add value by taking on as much of the down-stream processing as possible.

• Aim to scan documents or capture data as close to the source as possible – in the branch office, on the shop floor, in the field or at the customer’s premises.

• Brainstorm how the capabilities of modern mobile devices – portable scanners, smartphones, tablets and specialist devices – could transform your processes by eliminating elapsed time, lost forms, poor data, and rekeying.

• Pick just one of these areas and test out the business case. Chances are it will show a good enough return on its own, with other applications and benefits enhancing the potential return.
The survey was taken using a web-based tool by 477 individual members of the AIIM community between November 30th, 2011, and January 3rd, 2012. Invitations to take the survey were sent via e-mail to a selection of the 65,000 AIIM community members.

Survey demographics can be found in Appendix A. Graphs throughout the report exclude responses from organizations with less than 10 employees and suppliers of ECM products or services, taking the number of respondents to 395.

Full report http://www.aiim.org/pdfdocuments/IW_Paper-free-Capture_2012.pdf