What Few Businesses Know About the True Cost of Document Production

Uncontrolled, Undocumented Business
Document Production Costs:
· It has been well researched that the largest uncontrolled, undocumented cost in corporate America today is printing costs.  Most companies have no idea how much they spend on document production.
· A recent survey of US and European businesses found that only 13% had prioritized reducing document production costs.
· The average cost of document production for enterprises is between 3%-6% of their annual revenues (for example:  every $10,000,000.00 in annual revenues equals $300,000.00-$600,000.00 in document production costs).
· On average, only 5% of a company's budget for printing and copying devices is spent on the hardware itself, 45%of the budget is spent on consumables with 50% spent on maintenance and support.

Under Utilized Hardware Investments:
· Extensive research conducted by a major printer manufacturer concluded that most companies fail to make the best use of the devices they own.  
· In most businesses there is a significant overlap between devices - as much as 30 percent in some cases - and many of them have too much equipment.  
· Over 1/2 of all business’s printers are under used.  
· Increased return on document technology investments are achieved by reducing Cost Per Print (CPP), increasing productivity, simplifying management, and optimizing print environment asset utilization.  Combined, these elements can contribute to a 30-50% reduction in document production costs for most enterprises.

Employee/Office Worker Costs:

· Each office worker uses about 13,000 sheets of paper per year through copying, printing and faxing.
· 60% of an employee's time is spent working with paper documents.  
· A $30.00 per-hour knowledge worker will waste an average of $4,500.00 each year because of lost productivity time due to problems with paper documents.

Important Information All Businesses Should Know:
· The Document Imaging business is a multi-billion dollar business not because of hardware sales, but because the cost of operating the hardware is far greater than the actual hardware itself.
· Finding the true “Cost of Ownership” (TCO) of document production hardware is a problem shared by most companies on a national basis.  Any business, large or small, that can not identify exactly how much it is spending on any part of its business has a problem

***Sources of information used in this document come from independent studies conducted by nationally recognized organizations such as BERTL, J.D. Power & Assoc. & Gartner Group***