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THE 6

QUESTIONS
EVERY IT
LEADER
NEEDS
TO ASK
By Dan Waldinger, Director of Marketing, Solutions
& Services at Brother International Corporation

In the past, IT was often viewed as a cost center. But todays IT professionals
are business-savvy executives responsible for bottom-line results. They are
important members of the corporate management team, tasked with improving
productivity and efficiency. However, many CIOs may be surprised to find a
significant business loss caused by their own departments.
For example, a CIO at a company with 500 employees can potentially recover
more than $100k per year by asking six key questions and making simple
changes that often require zero development costs. Theyre easy fixes that many
IT professionals may be overlooking.
How does your company compare? Run through these questions and find out.

THE 6 QUESTIONS EVERY IT LEADER NEEDS TO ASK

APPROXIMATELY WHAT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR


WORKFLOW IS PAPERLESS?
A self-assessment business tool offered by Brother International
Corporation** has shown that paper is still critical to business operations
in most industries. On average, only 36 percent of respondents are
utilizing paperless workflow. While paper will likely never go away entirely,
businesses can utilize technology to help reduce the paper, increase
efficiency and minimize printing-related costs. To potentially do this, consider
adopting electronic document capture and sharing, enabling mobilebased printing and scanning, leveraging cloud-based services and moving
to sustainable/green printing.

DO YOU CURRENTLY UTILIZE OUTPUT MANAGEMENT


SOFTWARE TO HELP SECURE, REDIRECT OR TRACK PRINT
JOBS IN YOUR OFFICE?
The data collected from the Brother self-assessment tool** shows that only
19 percent of businesses are making use of these valuable tools. Output
management software can help you control costs and reduce paper
usage. An InfoTrends whitepaper titled Device Underuse and Unbalanced
Fleets: Key Printing Trends and Their SMB Impact reports organizations
can maximize cost savings and productivity through print management/
cost recovery solutions to automate a range of print, copy, and scan tasks,
including activity tracking, cost allocation, quota setting/enforcement, secure
printing, job redirect and reporting.*

Industry-specific solutions are also available. For example, healthcare


organizations can deploy software that securely integrates printers with
electronic medical records (EMR) or claims management systems, enabling
jobs to be properly transmitted to the appropriate repositories.

To

optimize

productivity,

maintain

worker-to-device

ratio

HOW MANY PAGES DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION


PRINT PER MONTH?

Heres a trick to aid in improving your bottom line: Many multifunction


printers (MFPs) are capable of printing at least 100,000 pages per month.
However, many SMBs typically print no more than 10,000 pages per
month*. For businesses committed to a common 100,000-page per month
contract, this 90 percent underuse wastes valuable capital. Determine your
organizations print volume, recalibrate to match the needs and help curb
the monthly losses.

WHICH BEST DESCRIBES YOUR CURRENT DOCUMENT


OUTPUT ENVIRONMENT:
A) Printers for Every Desktop,
B) Mix of desktop printers, shared printers and standalone copiers,
C) Primarily a shared standalone printer / copier?
The ideal solution is a mix of desktop printers, shared printers and standalone
copiers. Current Brother self-assessment results** show that 18 percent of
companies provide a printer for each employee and 25 percent have a mix.
However more than half (57 percent) rely on a shared standalone printer /
copier a strategy that may kill productivity and hurt the bottom line.
Data sources:
* InfoTrends whitepaper Device Underuse and Unbalanced Fleets. To see the white paper visit www.
DontSupersizeOptomize.com.

of

approximately 8-1. A survey conducted by Clarus Research Group***


reveals that workers with more shared printers are also more digitally
engaged. A greater number of these respondents say their companies
encourage the use of digital documents, use multiple screens, find
reading on screen easier, use more mobile devices than they used to
and are more environmentally conscious. Those that have centralized
printers are more than two times more likely to say their company
printers take too long to finish printing jobs.
But just adding more printers wont solve your challenges. This leads to
question 6

ESTIMATE THE AVERAGE DISTANCE AN EMPLOYEE


NEEDS TO WALK TO USE A STANDALONE
PRINTER/COPIER.
Printer placement is the most critical step in maximizing your cost savings.
InfoTrends data* shows that poor allocation of office devices is a drain to
corporate profits, wasting more than 4,000 hours and nearly $130,000
per year in long walks to and from copiers and printers. The solution? Its
simple - Make sure you have one printer within 25 feet of every workgroup.
The Clarus survey***shows that trips to the printer can also be a
significant drain on productivity. Non-work conversations at the printer
are 98 percent more likely to result in stops to other colleagues desks

InfoTrends research shows a steady decline in printing, which can be


attributed to a number of factors. Many for small-to-medium business
employees choose to work from smartphones and tablets rather than from
printed documents. Most print jobs are now five pages or fewer, and the
decline in print volumes will persist as more operations move from paper to
digital. This knowledge can translate into big savings for your organization.

WHAT IS THE APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF PRINTERS AND


PRINTER/COPIERS IN USE AT YOUR COMPANY?

to chat about personal things, but only 28 percent more likely to chat
about work. In fact, 61 percent of employees have conversations at
the copier/printer versus just 31 percent who have conversations at the
water cooler. This wasted time could be costly to small-to-medium sized
businesses. As the CIO, you can easily mitigate these business losses with
more appropriate device allocation.

GETTING STARTED
Many IT leaders overlook office devices when optimizing for cost and
efficiency. If your company is like most, your printers may be too big, too
far away and too expensive. A balanced deployment strategy the results
in right-sizing your printer fleet can help you save time and money, and
its surprisingly easy. Connect with Brother and let us help you optimize
your work flow.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Dan Waldinger is the Director, Services
and Solutions Marketing, Brother
International Corporation. With more
than 25 years of industry experience,
Mr. Waldinger leads the companys
Think Optimize effort. Under his
leadership, Brother provides resources,
self-assessment tools and solutions for
business to reduce document-related
costs and increase efficiencies.
** An ongoing online self-assessment tool for business users by Brother International Corporation at
www.DontSupersizeOptomize.com. All data provided was collected up to January, 2015.
*** Survey conducted by independent research company Clarus Research Group.

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