J Sainsbury has saved £500,000 over three years and expects
to save another £500,000 by replacing desktop printers and
centralising and outsourcing its print operations.
The news emerged this morning as print specialist Ricoh
announced the results of a
Europe-wide
survey of firms' document management processes.
British firms are ignoring the benefits of a formal document
management process, which can help them meet cost saving, security,
climate impact and compliance goals, the study said.
Re-engineering its document processing saved a German
non-government organisation with more than 2,000 staff 30% of its
total cost of print ownership, Ricoh said.
A global marketer of athletic footwear with more than 30,000
people globally was spending €4m/y mailing 4.5 million paper
invoices. By outsourcing invoicing to Ricoh it went from paper to
electronic invoicing, which will save it an estimated €3m over
three years, Ricoh said.
According to the Ricoh Document Governance Index published
today, just less than four in 10 firms across Europe had a document
governance strategy, despite it costing Europe an estimated
€14bn/y, or up to 5% of firms' annual turnover.
The results were based on interviews conducted by Coleman Parkes
Research with more than 300 C-level executives in large and medium
firms across Europe who are in charge of document processing at
their firms.
Nearly eight of 10 interviewees recognised that improved
document governance could save up to 30% of costs, document
management was sporadic and uncontrolled. Only 38% reviewed their
costs 'sometimes' and 17% never review them.
Outsourcing document processing could simplify business
processes, cut costs and environmental impact, increase security
and allocate resources better, researchers said.
The report found that responsibility for document governance was
decentralised. Most respondents said responsibility was split
between several people, and 57% devolved ownership to individual
staff members. Six out of 10 gave partial responsibility to
department heads, including HR, office managers, sales and
marketing.
Ricoh Europe CEO Simon Sasaki said firms were allowing their
printing, photocopying and faxing to go unchecked. "Underestimating
the risks leaves them susceptible to overspending, under
productivity, security breaches and a high carbon footprint," he
said.