A new report conducted by Brother UK tackles the myth of the paperless office and expounds on the more realistic option of going ‘paper-lite’.
Brother describes the notion of the paperless office as “an unrealistic ambition” but says that “there are ways that firms can use technology, including Brother scanners, to reduce the amount of paper they consume”, which the company calls going “paper-lite”.
Brother explains that the paper-lite concept has been explored in a new research report by the OEM.
As part of the report, Brother spoke to over 800 small business managers and employees and found that 80 percent of managers still print as much or more than they did two years previously. 61 percent revealed they “are striving to use less paper but not no paper”, while the average monthly print costs for these small businesses is cited at £1,502 ($1,958/€1,726).
In addition, 69 percent of managers stated that they would always require paper “to some degree” in order to keep their business operating efficiently.
Switching the focus to employees, 55 percent still print documents for filing and safekeeping, 41 percent print reports, 37 percent print in order to read and analyse information, 30 percent print presentations and 18 percent print to edit documents.
Brother goes on to elaborate on the paper-lite method, which involves scanning paper documents to turn them into digital files, which can then be stored more easily and also shared more effectively.
The company offered up some statistics on scanning, including the fact that 61 percent of employees said their business is now reliant on it and 65 percent asserted that scanning helps to improve the quality of their work.
The infographic concludes by suggesting ways in which businesses can go paper-lite, such as investing in a Managed Print Service, digitising documents, and moving office printers further away from employees.
