The Cost of Paper Documents

There are so many reasons to not pay attention to the cost of producing and managing documents today. After all, with sales down dramatically and the economy horrible,
You just don’t have time to pay attention to things like ink and toner costs or how long it takes your HR department to locate a personnel file from 2 years ago. Never mind the fact that according to Gartner that it can cost up to 15% of a business’ total annual revenues to produce and manage documents. 15%!!!

Gartner has also stated that those companies that develop and implement a document management strategy can save up to 40% of those costs. So…if your company does $1,000,000 in revenue per year, not paying attention to how your company produces and manages documents can be costing you up to $60,000 per year…got your attention now? How much revenue does your company have to generate to earn $60,000 in gross profit?

The nice thing is that whatever the size of your company, taking a close look at those costs can save you money, improve productivity and reduce risk. Simply things like right-sizing your multi-function copier can help. In a study done for an architectural interior design firm in Indianapolis, simply right-sizing their color multi-function copier improved productivity within their design department by over 60%...and saved them nearly $15,000 per year per designer in improved work flow productivity.

So next month when you are studying your P & L and wondering how you’re going to improve your GP numbers, think about the document you’re studying, how it was generated, how it was produced and how many times over it’s lifetime it will be reproduced and you may realize that you’re looking at the answer to your question