Nearly four in five small businesses want to reduce how much they spend on printing.
In a survey by EBM, 79 per cent of SMEs and micro-businesses said they want to cut down on their costs when it comes to printers, toner, paper and other related products.
Despite this, many respondents did not know how much they currently spend – 52 per cent were unable to confirm their current total printing expenses.
“It’s clearly impossible to manage your printing budget downwards if you don’t have any handle on it in the first place,” said Mark Bailey, managing director at EBM.
“We absolutely salute any business wanting to reduce its printing costs but the first step in that journey is to assess spend over the last couple of years.”
Although the firms surveyed said price is a priority when they are seeking a new printer, 67 per cent opt to purchase their devices, with only 22 per cent leasing them. Other key factors for businesses buying printers were quality, the cost of consumables and reliability.
There also appeared to be some room for increased efficiency within the companies surveyed. 62 per cent of the firms were micro-businesses with between two and ten employees, but 52 per cent said they use more than one printing device.
“It came as no surprise that cost was a huge factor for businesses when making the decision to acquire a new print device, but our research demonstrates that many organisations are not putting as much thought into managing the ongoing cost of printing,” Bailey said.
“This results in many businesses wasting a huge amount of money, time, and resources, often as a result of them purchasing inefficient devices that become outdated quickly, or having to fork out on repairs or replacement devices when things go wrong.”
For the full report, see the EBM website.
Photo © Christiaan Colen (CC BY-SA 2.0). Cropped.
