A few industry trends

Talking with Toshiba dealers at their conference last week, I heard the following:
▪ Color units represent between 50-70 percent of units installed. That is even more remarkable when you consider that Toshiba does not sell lo=end color single-function printers and that, as we have noted before, has not had, up until now, a full range of Toshiba-manufactured color copiers (The ones above 55ppm were relabeled Ricoh models.)
▪ Most buyers of color systems are upgrading from current black-and-white systems. Moreover, color devices are being placed through the whole range of customer types.
▪ While buyers are very insistent on demanding access controls and accounting software to regulate color use and cut down on unnecessary color printing, the truth is that, once the systems are installed, most customers don’t use these tools.
▪ Customers are getting more and more used to using copier-multifunctionals as fax machines.
▪ Dealers are well aware of the need to become “solutions providers,” that is, to accompany the sales of hardware with extensive software supports in such areas as document management, accounting, and workflow. Most have allocated technical staff and sales support to that end. But all report that it’s a tough sell, with long lead time and sometimes disappointing results. It’s one thing to get a single exec to sign off on a copier; it’s quite another to get a group of managers to agree on how and when documents will be stored digitally, how they will be protected and accessed. The sales cycle stretches out as the customers starts to redesign the way business is conducted. Yes, if carried out right, it can make you ever more indispensable to our customers, but it does involve a big investment in staffing and training with a long-term payback.

OKI survey on printing

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are paying a price for unmanaged printing costs. That’s according to a survey just released by OKI Data Americas. The company surveyed 700 IT professionals from SMBs across the U.S. and found very little in the way of serious cost controls in place. Such companies are far less in control of printing costs than larger companies, and the headache is growing. (Small businesses are defined as those with 1-99 employees, while medium businesses have 100-999 employees.)

The survey found that:
• Over half of SMBs expect to print either the same amount or more in the future as they do currently
• Seventy-seven percent of SMBs still prefer to review just about everything on paper rather than onscreen. Meaning they print out almost everything.
• SMBs report that fifteen percent of jobs printed are non-work related (as opposed to seven percent at large companies).

In general, few companies had any real control of how much was being printed, who was printing, on what devices, and at what cost. OKI proposes a printing needs assessment, extended use of administrative tools, and the education of users to avoid paper and toner waste.