The advantages of printing technology are many. Electronic document management saves on paper and paper waste while maximizing efficiency. It cuts out much of the room for error and helps businesses to run as smoothly as possible.
When we talk about the advantages of printing technology, we must first talk about the pitfalls of traditional office supply use. First, it’s not in any way good for the environment. In just the United States alone, an individual office worker will use up to 10,000 sheets of paper or more in one year. The Paperless Project Coalition has estimated that over 80% of office documents are still in hard copy paper form, causing immense amounts of paper waste. In fact, 17% of all things printed is considered waste. Using paper isn’t cost effective either. In fact, the printer and copying machine are often the third largest office expense, smaller only than rent and payroll. For each individual employee businesses often spend between $600 and $1300 in one year on just printing expenses. Filing papers also eats up a lot of a company’s budget. It’s estimated that each piece of paper costs up to $20 to file, and for every misfiled document, the company loses an astounding $125. Office supplies take up a lot of space as well and certain office items like paper often become misplaces or lost entirely.
When paper documents are lost or misplaced, companies lose lots of money in lost time and productivity. On average, a month of productive time is lost every year due to misfiled or lost documents. And lost or misfiled documents are not an uncommon or isolated occurrence. According to a study done by the Gartner Group, up to 15% of files are misplaced or misfiled. And over 7% of files are simply just lost forever. An estimated almost 20% of company time is lost per employee because of lost or misplaced information.
The advantages of printing technology can certainly help to mitigate this lost money, especially for the Human Resources department, the Accounts Payable department, the Contracts Management department, and the Accounts Receivable department. Going paperless is one of the advantages of printing technology that can reduce harm on the environment, reduce waste in general, and help to mitigate and prevent lost company time and money searching for lost or misplaced paper documents.