The aim of this white paper is to highlight the inefficient printing habits that are prevalent in various organisations worldwide and the cost savings and environmental benefits that can be harnessed through a proper print management system like PretonSaverTM.
This paper is designed to address the needs of three distinct audiences:
- Those who do not know they have a problem
- Those who are aware of the problem but are unsure what to do next
- Those who have already taken steps to address the issue (such as a printer refresh and consolidation) and are looking to make further savings.
Across Europe, an average of 20% of all printed material is thrown away without ever being read, approximately 3% of a company’s revenue will be spent on printing, and over 30% of calls to the help desk will be print related, many of these relating purely to the need to replace supplies such as toners, inks and paper.
Reducing your printing costs can therefore make a significant impact on the bottom line. When making a printer purchase, buying criteria is often disproportionately influenced by the initial acquisition cost of the hardware. Additionally, many businesses will carefully manage the supply chain for all devices and consumables centrally, optimising the supply chain but not the printer use, and so fail to actually deal with the source of the problem – overuse and unnecessary printed output – often with overly high toner or ink usage.
Industry estimates suggest that the average company’s printing costs amount to an average of Euro 450 per employee per year – up to Euro 945 in some vertical sectors, but the hardware costs are relatively small.
This whitepaper will delve deeper into the cost of print, the current potential for waste and will show how you can:
- Reduce your printing expenses by up to 70% (overall savings across an enterprise typically range from 25-40%)
- Identify and dramatically reduce waste by raising awareness of printing issues within your organisation
- Create a culture shift towards more responsible printing.
Today, there is more awareness of printing issues and companies are looking for ways to reduce their print costs as well as make their printing more efficient, by replacing old printers with new ones. This is an impressive start, delivering a positive impact on the company’s print costs and the environment, but the story should not end there. Most companies have yet to maximise potential for cost saving by taking sufficient steps to address the root cause of the problem.
Why not just optimise your print to begin with – laying down less toner or ink on the page?
Implementing the PretonSaverTM solution can further reduce printing spend by up to 70%. Therefore, by combining new more efficient hardware with PretonSaverTM print management and consumable optimization solutions, print spend can be reduced dramatically.
Today’s Economic Climate
With the current state of the world economy, most companies are searching for ways to decrease costs. However, printing often falls under the radar. But when you consider the facts, printing suddenly starts to look a lot more interesting ‐ particularly if you are the financial director or CIO looking to make savings.
Needless printing undoubtedly has financial repercussions, but environmental concerns also need to be addressed. Printer consolidation will not deliver the complete solution. Personal responsibility and accountability of those using printers is fundamental. The economy is focusing attention on cost saving in all markets.
Business decisions regarding environmental impact rely on a strong return on investment element. Green issues are still hot on the agenda for many organizations, which proudly brand themselves ‘green’. Having evidence of projects and savings that you have made can make good subject matter for marketing and advertising purposes and result in positive PR. Therefore, print reduction and consumable savings also provide a company with a good chance to show off its green credentials. Additionally, it can be an incentive to a company’s employees. Getting staff involved in making the business greener and the office more energy efficient can motivate and nurture a sense of a team environment.
Environmental Considerations
At the heart of the issue are the cultural and operational issues surrounding printing. A recent poll showed that fewer than half of office staff say they are careful about printing documents and avoid printing hard copies unless absolutely necessary. Twenty-five percent admit to not giving much thought to printing documents and a further 13 percent do not worry about how many documents they print as long as they recycle them. Only 16 percent of workers said that their company emails carry a footnote asking the recipient whether it is necessary to print out the email and only two‐thirds of companies provide recycling bins for paper.
| Recent research has shown that office workers throw away over 40% of everything they print within a day, which equates to more than a trillion pages every year (2009) |
A recent study by one of the major vendors identified that more than a third of the 10,000 respondents surveyed said they feel guilty about wasted print and 85% said they would opt for an environmentally conscious printing option if one was available.
However, the survey also found that while 58% recognise extensive paper waste in their office, only 26% see themselves as personally contributing to this. This demonstrates the need for employees to take ownership of the waste issue and recognise their personal stake in improving the situation.
The green debate is not a new one and big businesses have acknowledged the importance of a robust environmental strategy. However, these results indicate that individual employees have either not bought into their company’s policies or perhaps don’t believe they are genuine. All office workers need to understand their individual impact when it comes to the environment and taking responsibility for improving company policy needs to be a collaborative effort between management and staff. Without effective communication of its green strategy throughout an organisation, more damage will be done than good.
A clear example of how office workers are turning a cold shoulder to the environment is in the disposal of paper. The office paper mountain continues to grow despite the availability of duplex and secure printing. On average, an office worker unnecessarily throws away eight pages of A4 paper every day. This equates to approximately 120m pages of A4 that don’t need to be printed every day – the equivalent of 250,000 reams of paper. Despite this huge volume, less than a quarter (24%) of offices default their printers to duplex settings (i.e. double sided printing)
Just 5% of workers questioned said that they are more environmentally conscious at work compared to at home, where recycling and energy efficiency are common practices, and only 48% believe that protecting the environment during office hours is their responsibility. Thirty-three percent feel that company bosses should shoulder the burden and only 9% even went as far as saying that it should be the government, not them, which should be held accountable for polluting practices.
Pages Printed per Employee – per day – by Country (Source: Lexmark/Ipsos Survey (April 2010))
The findings paint a concerning picture of “carefree printing habits” in offices where less than half of workers (47%) say they are careful about printing documents and avoid printing hard copies unless absolutely necessary.
Sadly, the paperless office remains a myth for many, as the above chart demonstrates. Office printing continues to spiral out of control – with very few companies having any transparency on their print costs. This is compounded by the fact that there is a general lack of guidelines for employees regarding printing practices and most people readily admit to not really thinking twice about hitting the “print” option on an email or document.
Printed Pages wasted per employee – per day – per country (Source: Lexmark/Ipsos Survey (April 2010))
Printing and copying are significant costs for any business and can represent between 3 – 9 % of its total revenue. Despite this cost, it would appear that the majority of companies do not seem to have any centralised function taking responsibility for their printer environment and as a result few businesses have an accurate picture of how much their printing is costing them. Aside from the considerable environmental benefits that can be realised, better management of consumables, maintenance and support, and document management can reduce a company’s spend on their printer estate by as much as 40% and significantly increase their efficiency.
People’s reasons for printing documents differ between individuals. The main explanations given for printing are the need to share documents with others for review (41%), complying with company rules (35%) and not liking to review documents on the screen (31%). However, one in five workers (19%) just wants to keep hard copies for his own files, 12% print documents to review and 7% make revisions to hard copies that they then hand over to their secretaries.
Methods to target print costs include:
Printer consolidation
Remove and replace older, more expensive machines and reallocate the remaining devices more effectively.
Use Consumable Saving Technology (toner and ink reduction software)
You can save your organisation 25-40% of print consumables costs by simply installing the PretonSaverTM solution. The investment is minimal with a quick ROI.
Adopt Printer management software
Manage usage and printers centrally to reduce costs and increase service levels to end users freeing up IT staff for more value add tasks.
Adopt print polices which reduce waste
Educate the users on the impact of printing and put policies in place to manage printing. Only this option will actually reduce the amount printed, all the others specifically target the cost per page. If you print a million pages a month, you’ll still pay for the 20% of pages produced in error and wasted. PretonSaverTM Print Rules and Policies can eliminate unnecessary and wasteful printing and reduce the overall print volumes by 20%.
Printed Pages Continue to Grow
Estimates suggest that in 2010 some 3.35 trillion pages will be printed in homes and businesses across Western Europe – an increase of 8% on the previous year. Notably within this growth we see a huge increase in the number of colour pages produced – driven by new applications and web printing.
Today’s printed output, ranging from emails, business letters, invoices (incorporating trans-promotional content), PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets all benefit from the inclusion of colour – and colour as printed content within documents is expected to grow even more dramatically in the coming years.
With the inclusion of colour comes the obvious benefits such as improved image on letterheads, decreased payment cycles on billing, and increased data retention on educational documentation. However, there is also the matter of increased costs to consider. An average black and white letter has an average of between 2 – 4% coverage. When we start adding colour to documents, with charts and graphics the coverage increases to 40% and this in turn, increases costs.
As organisations continue to add colour devices to their print and imaging infrastructure, we are seeing employees embracing colour within their documents – and in many cases this has created a financial headache for the department(s) in question, with costs spiralling out of control in many instances.
In reality, the costs incurred from printing are actually driven by the users themselves. If a user can access a colour device then they will usually print a large proportion of their documents (email, Word, PowerPoint, Web, etc.) using the most expensive settings. Bradham360 estimates that colour printing is increasing by 35% per year in European businesses. However, disabling colour printing en masse is not a viable solution, as the use of colour is a valuable communication tool and is critical for some documents.
This lack of control and management produces an environment where cost and waste can grow exponentially with little or no control. For a print cost / waste management programme to be successful there is a need for someone in the organisations to take ownership of the problem, to install a decent print management solution to monitor the organisation’s print behaviour and device usage.
An Overview of the PretonSaverTM Solution
Preton Ltd. announces PretonSaver Enterprise™ 3.3.1 the solution that Reduces Cost of Printing by up to 70%
PretonSaver Enterprise™ 3.3.1 is a print management solution that uses patent-pending technology to identify and delete wasteful pixels during printing, offering up to 70% savings on toner and ink. This award winning environment friendly software for enterprises, offers several attractive savings benefits to an organisation looking to control print costs and save money whilst improving environmental adherence:
- PretonSaverTM saves up to 70% on ink/toner
- PretonSaverTM provides detailed reports and statistics
- PretonSaverTM reduces up to 20% of overall print volume
- PretonSaverTM Preserves our eco-system by reducing the environmental stress caused by printing.
PretonSaver EnterpriseTM uses a new set of enhanced savings algorithms, and can maintain optimized quality levels, while reducing the costs of printing.
In addition, the software offers several unique features:
Duplex enforcement enforcing double sided printing
N-up printing automatically compressing two pages to a single sheet
Colour to mono conversion converting colour print job to mono
Automatic omission of graphics or images from specific documents
Applying print rules and policies for specific application
Accurate print cost reporting calculating the cost of a printed page based on actual page coverage and consumable cost
Environmental reports listing the amount of CO2 and paper/trees saved by the organization
User annotation which identifies the user printing a document
Continued savings even when disconnected from the network.
PretonSaver EnterpriseTM is already successfully sold to medium and large sized organizations around the world. Its customer base includes well established clients such as banks, health care organisations, government offices and international companies. PretonSaverTM EnterpriseTM is used by hundreds of thousands of corporate users every day, reducing the cost of printing – saving money and the environment. It is estimated that over 3 billion pages are printed with PretonSaverTM each year.
In addition to its print management capabilities, PretonSaverTM‘s unique technology, the Pixel OptimizerTM, identifies wasteful pixels and deletes them, and the space left is filled by excess toner or ink from adjacent pixels. PretonSaverTM‘s Element IdentifierTM technology, allows attributing a different savings level to different elements on the page (text, pictures and graphics) in order to maximize the required quality of each element. This sophisticated combination of technologies enables the printing of a high quality mixed element document with maximum savings applied per element and not per page as a whole. Management of printing rules allows for even more ways to monitor and prevent excessive and unnecessary printing using quotas, regulations predefined across a network, and advanced printer settings.
PretonSaver EnterpriseTM provides a quick and significant reduction in print costs, better control over printer fleets and print activities, and provides the data and management information required for selecting the right printing strategy.
The software solution offers a 4-step print cost savings methodology, which can be realized immediately after installation.
Step 1 – active consumable savings – from the moment the software is installed active savings will be implemented on every print job carried out in a Windows environment, reducing the overall toner and ink usage and enabling up to 70% consumable savings.
Step 2 – detailed reports – in addition to enabling savings, the software collects information of the print activities in the organization, and this information is compiled into detailed cost and usage reports, which can be used to analyze the organization’s print cost structure and patterns.
Step 3 – using the print cost structure and patterns analysis, print rules and policies can be implemented to reduce print volumes without having a negative effect on productivity. Print rules and policies can reduce print volumes by up to 20%.
Step 4 – active reduction in carbon foot print – Green House Gas (GHG) emissions caused by manufacturing a single mono toner cartridge have been calculated to be approximately 4.8 Kg of CO2.
Furthermore, during the complete life cycle of a ton of office paper, the equivalent of 6.3 tons of CO2 will be emitted into the air. Reducing the organization’s print volumes will save 0.035 grams of CO2 for every A4 or Letter size sheet. In addition, every cartridge of toner saved will save 4.8 Kg of CO2. These environmental savings calculations are actively done by PretonSaverTM for every print job carried out.
The PretonSaverTM software helps reduce all that damage and cut down on the printing industry’s carbon footprint.
In fact, on June 22, 2010, PretonSaverTM became the first software product in the world to receive an Eco-Label for Green IT, awarded for meeting strict rules promoting environment conservation. The label was awarded to PretonSaverTM by the “Hong Kong Green Label Scheme” a part of The Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN).
The aim of the environmental criteria for computer software, which PretonSaverTM had to meet, is to:
- Maximize energy efficiency and reduce the consumption of natural resources
- Reduce the use of environmentally harmful substances
- Promote improved durability and recyclability
- Minimize waste through systematic management approaches.
“We are proud to be a part of a joint global effort to save the planet, while cutting down on high printing costs. We will continue to do our very best to come up with new and improved products as we have always done”, said Mr. Ori Eizenberg, CEO of Preton Ltd.
Case Study 1 – Bradford City Metropolitan District Council
The 4th largest council in England with over 20,000 employees
Bradford recognised it had an aging and expensive print fleet, which needed to be upgraded with recent improvements to its general IT infrastructure. They also recognised the adverse environmental impact and high financial cost of their mixed printer fleet. Furthermore, Bradford realised that there was no readily available information on printing costs or volumes.
Before purchasing PretonSaver EnterpriseTM, Bradford ran a proof of concept assessment of PretonSaverTM. The tests were very impressive, with an immediate 31% reduction in the use of consumables at default settings. For the first time, information was available to assess the council’s print activity and volume. The installation of PretonSaverTM resulted in:
- Reduced print costs
- Software costs funded entirely by direct savings in consumable spending
- Delivery of tangible environmental savings by the reduction in use of non-sustainable and environmental resources
- The availability of reporting data on print activity, enabling simplified print management and reduced printer support costs.
Bradford has been using PretonSaver EnterpriseTM with great success for over 3 years now.
Case Study 2 – A Health Authority in the UK
The problem – 1,500 users, multiple vendors, aged print and imaging devices ranging from mono & colour, SF & MF, Toner & Inkjet to A4 – A0 Large format, and unknown costs. The Authority previously had no information on the volume of print, or on what was printed or when, from which application or to which printer.
The Target– Savings requirements of 35%-50% were to be achieved using the existing fleet. Such savings would more than fund PretonSaverTM within a short time and would, in addition, provide the detail needed to start rationalising (right-sizing) the printer fleet as the next step.
The solution – PretonSaverTM Installed
The results – Clarity as to the state of Bradford’s current print infrastructure – installing PretonSaverTM raised awareness of a previously overlooked expense and control issue.
PretonSaverTM paid for itself in a matter of months – thus freeing up funds that could be reinvested into vital healthcare for the local community.
The ROI Potential of the PretonSaverTM Solution
Preton Ltd. presents the PretonSaverTM print management solution, which among other things offers customers a software solution designed to drastically reduce toner and ink use in the Microsoft Windows print environment. PretonSaverTM’s unique technologies – the Pixel OptimizerTM and Element IdentifierTM achieve these savings. To validate these savings, Preton Ltd engaged bradham360 Ltd. and its associate testing company, Industry Analysts, Inc., to analyse the difference in laser toner usage using the printer manufacturer’s print driver in default mode once and then printing the same document employing PretonSaverTM as well.
The results of these tests proved compelling. Testing proved that when employing the PretonSaverTM solution on a mixed content document (with text, graphics, and image), savings of 68.8% were achieved, and furthermore, at a savings level of 26.3% there was no noticeable reduction in print quality.
The results speak for themselves. Employing PretonSaverTM within your organisation can open up cost saving opportunities previously unattainable, whilst also bringing a degree of control and awareness to the print environment previously not apparent.
So, who should consider employing PretonSaverTM? In short, any type of organisation can benefit from employing PretonSaverTM as part of its print & imaging infrastructure to bring control, increase awareness of the costs incurred in printing documents within the organisation and dramatically reduce the cost of printing on a fleet of printers and MFP’s whether they be A4, A3 or greater, Single Function or multifunction, toner based or ink-jet, mono or colour, mono brand or multiple brand.
In Conclusion…
Taking control of your printing is a valuable cost saving exercise, as well as being an environmentally responsible way of improving your brand and engaging your staff. As this paper has demonstrated, there are a number of steps that an organisation can take to bring these benefits to the bottom line and stop the senseless waste that is endemic throughout organisations.
To recap, here are the key steps that companies looking to make the change should take:
- Use PretonSaverTM to optimise savings from your current printing habits and gather information on areas of waste
- Use PretonSaverTM to implement rules and settings to ensure your print estate is running as efficiently as possible
- Gain the buy‐in from your employees by making them aware of their printing habits
- Keep a record of the savings that have been made and inform employees to gain further support for the savings efforts and motivate staff
- Gather information about your printing estate and assess your hardware requirements.
Then, if needed, talk to a vendor about a printer refresh to ensure you are operating the most efficient and cost effective devices for your actual requirements.
By following these steps you can make a genuine difference to the bottom line. You don’t necessarily have to replace your existing printer estate to achieve significant savings. To gain immediate savings use a solution like PretonSaverTM and save up to 70% on ink and toner. By understanding and targeting areas of waste and bad practices, any business can save around 20% of its total print costs without too much effort.
About Preton Ltd
Preton Ltd. is a leading provider of print management and toner optimization solutions. Founded in 2005 by a team of engineering and business professionals with almost 40 years of successful software experience, Preton is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Preton’s patent-pending technology, Pixel OptimizerTM, incorporates state of the art mathematical algorithms to identify and delete wasteful pixels during printing, offering substantial savings on toner and ink.
Preton’s award-winning products, PretonSaver EnterpriseTM, PretonSaver StandardTM, PretonSaver PremiumTM, and PretonSaver HomeTM offer revolutionary savings of up to 70% on printing costs. The products are sold in four continents through its partner network, and serve hundreds of thousands of users every day. Preton Ltd. is committed to the highest standards of software development and to providing the best possible software solution to our customers. The company is in the process of developing additional products that will help companies to further control and manage their print resources.
About bradham 360 Ltd
bradham360 Ltd is a best in class provider of strategic advice and market intelligence to users and providers of hardware, software and services related to the print and imaging markets in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Its strategic alliances and partnerships have recently expanded its scope to the US Market. bradham360’s Directors and Associates years’ of industry experience bring a level of knowledge and expertise unrivalled in other print and imaging market research organisations. bradham360 Ltd provides advisory services, strategic consulting, thought leadership, industry expertise and insight to the vendor, channel and end-user.
www.bradham360.com
Contributed by:
Optimum Print Technology
