How To Increase Productivity and Profitability Through Digital Technology
The rise in digital technology has revolutionised the office. It has transformed the way we work and maximise our profit margins. If you haven't thought seriously about upgrading to digital, then it is likely your business is falling behind.
It's quite common for our team to find areas of high spending that could be easily eliminated. Cheap initial deals can transform into extremely costly ongoing monthly charges. These hidden costs keep increasing, creating stress, financial strain, amongst other negative impacts on business.
To help you, we've pulled together a list of common areas over-spending occurs. All of which can be reduced through the smart use of digital technology.
Overlooked business expenses
Printing expenses
There are generally three reasons why your business is paying too much for printing.
A small-medium business assumes that multiple small multifunction devices are a more cost-effective solution. This is not the case. Business owners must consider toners, drums and expensive maintenance kits. Huge profits are made through expensive consumables the device needs to function. You must then consider the cost of sending an employee to buy these consumables (regularly to numerous locations as stocks are limited in the NT). The true cost of these small 'cheap' devices is confronting once the costs are added up.
The supplier of a large multifunction device continually increases the cost of your service agreement every year (some suppliers increase by 20%+ per annum). What appeared to be a cheap deal when signed has suddenly increased by 60-80% over 3-4 years.
Print wastage. Staff print a document, get busy, forget, then print it again. The cost of paper combined with the loss of productivity from staff adds up quickly.
Out-dated document management systems
Have you taken a long hard look at your current document management systems lately? How much money is your business wasting on administrative functions?
Sadly, the truth is if you're paying someone to print, archive, view and edit files, then you are pouring money down the drain. The latest technology is transforming profit margins by encouraging us to automate many office systems.
Microsoft Word and network server storages are the usual out-dated methods. They involve scanning hard copy documents into storage systems. This is a major issue for businesses using small multifunction devices due to their lack of advanced features. Documents are hard to find once scanned and require manual organising on an internal system to order them correctly.
Data breaches
Data breaches are another significant risk for businesses who choose not to automate. Regardless of the size of an organisation or industry, poor document management is exceptionally costly. Confidential documents can easily get picked up by unauthorised staff members creating high-risk for any business.
Old technology or cheap devices
Old technology or cheap multifunction devices create significant downtime. Your old devices are less reliable, have more jamming and deliver low-quality printing and scanning. With small 'cheap' devices, there is often no technical support offered. If something goes wrong with your device, you will need to outsource; this takes time and money.
External print costs
The cost of external printing can impact business significantly. Many companies often outsource the printing of marketing materials. A considerable amount of time can be wasted through the process of outsourcing and costs for a third party are often expensive.
Time-consuming tasks
Invoicing and paying bills is a good example of an inefficient time-wasting process for many small to medium businesses. The area can be complicated and highly varied with many pressures. The money poured into these administrative tasks is confronting and, thanks to digital advances, unnecessary.
Business productivity issues
Not only does old technology impact your profit margin, but it also has negative impacts on the workforce. If your business has an older device or several desktop devices, you will have productivity issues. This is simply a result of the device being an inferior or unintelligent product. Common areas we consider when evaluating your productivity levels are:
How reliant you are on manual labour for paper filing and storage.
How often you and your team are attaching scanned documents to emails and manually archiving on your network.
What features your current multifunction devices have. For example, some only offer single-sided scanning.
Whether or not documents sometimes go missing.
Whether or not you consider re-printing to be normal. This is often a result of human error or simply team members forgetting they have printed a document.
A productive office is essential to ensuring the success of your business. Despite knowing this, many companies fall into the trap of sticking with old systems.
Why does this happen?
Digital technology has advanced. A lack of understanding around new software can hold you back. It's important to talk to local providers about these advances and understand them to make profitable decisions.
"Entry" costs for the new workflows. An initial cost can seem overwhelming without looking at the bigger savings and productivity gains over multiple years. When considering new technologies, it is very important to create a long-term cost analysis to help uncover the true costs and benefits.
Previous investments. There is an emotional investment you make when you purchase something. Many businesses own their small multifunction devices and are invested in using them. This is at the cost of your business. These devices are not smart and make processes long and arduous. The true cost of creating, managing and printing all your documents is confronting. Most businesses have no idea how document management costs are accumulated or the impact on their bottom line.
Identifying cost pitfalls in your business
When analysing what Digital Solution works best for you, you need to assess your current systems. Our team have specialised tips to help you identify the cost pitfalls for your particular business. If this is something you haven't done before, follow the three steps below to help you get started:
Keep a monthly or quarterly cost analysis that accounts for consumables and administration costs.
Record each time there is a malfunction with your device. This will help you to appreciate the time consumed in maintenance.
Talk to your staff. Ask your team how often they print in colour if they find documents easy to search for if they sometimes forget their printing. Having honest and open conversations around these topics will help uncover hidden expenses.
Using Digital Technology to reduce expenses and improve productivity
If you identify with any of the productivity issues or overlooked expenses, you will be happy to know we have solutions. Fuji Xerox Business Centre NT are leading the way in automating local business practices to achieve greater productivity and profitability. By automating your printing systems and embracing digital advances, you will make dramatic savings and enjoy productive teams.
Our Smart Work Gateway is a digital platform that will transform your business. Its capabilities and applications will put you ahead of the rest, improving business systems and offering easy to understand solutions.
How digital technology improves productivity and reduces costs
The latest Fuji Xerox multifunction devices eliminate human error, give transparent prices and eliminate the stress of expensive consumables. Thanks to their intuitive systems, they save businesses huge dollars in printing expenses.
The latest document management systems have removed the reliance on administrative manual labour. Workflow automation can be personalised to your specific predefined processes. They allow businesses to set up regulatory or in-house operating standards as well as implement any approval steps that need to be integrated. Overall, digital document management systems eliminate the person in the middle.
The latest technology also uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This is a valued feature that allows for all types of documents to be searched for. Your organisation no longer needs to consult with staff members to locate important documents.
Accounts payable has historically been heavily reliant on manual and paper-based processes. Digital technology can eliminate this, which in turn reduces high costs to your business. All accounts payable become entirely automated, costing you less in administration.
Huge savings by bringing printing in-house
A Fuji Xerox multifunction device can be used as a great marketing tool, printing quality documents to make your products or services stand out. You no longer need to outsource to third-party agencies, dramatically reducing down-time.
Less strain on IT resources
We pride ourselves on our local printer support. By taking the responsibility of printers off the shoulders of your IT department, our technicians dramatically increase businesses productivity.
Thanks to our on-the-ground experts, if any issues arise, they are dealt with quickly and effectively.
Greater control, reduced print volumes
Our Smart Work Gateway offers a feature called 'follow you', helping businesses enjoy automated cost recovery systems. All printing can be tracked thanks to this latest technology, ensuring organisations properly manage their workforces printing demands.
This feature is particularly helpful in schools or on large campuses where departments can be tracked and charged for their printing.
Improved business sustainability
By introducing 'Follow You' to a business, you can track and report on employee printing. This empowers an organisation to closely look at their print volumes and enforce practical solutions to reduce them. It also allows for more accountability from staff, helping them to engage with the impact of printing.
Print from anywhere, anytime
Mobile Printing is the next step in increased productivity. With digital technology helping us to work from anywhere around the world, there has become a demand for printing to be mobile too. Fuji Xerox Australia has found that 60% of mobile workers would like to be able to print from their mobile devices and only 1 in 5 actually can.
We have introduced a Mobile Print for Business app that intuitively allows employees to print from a handheld device. It also allows for documents to be scanned from a multifunction device in the office and quickly uploaded to a mobile worker's smartphone or tablet.
Our Smart Work Gateway also enables you to download highly confidential documents to any device, provided you have been granted secure access. You can also upload any documents you are working on to cloud storage. This means documents can be shared with colleagues anywhere, at any time.
Reduce organisational risks through improved confidentiality and data protection
Unintentional exposure to highly confidential documents can lead to the demise of a business. It can be costly and compromise the reputation of a company. Sadly, data breaches are increasing, either as a result of human error or hackers.
To avoid embarrassment, you need an enhanced document and data security system. Our Smart Work Gateway has you covered. It provides complete traceability assisting you to locate where all documents have been sent.
You are safe when your data is tracked. Each staff member has their unique digital fingerprint, which makes it easy to give access to certain people and know who has either downloaded or accessed a file. This security extends to your multifunction device, which will only allow a person with the relevant permissions to print a document. This traceability will enable you to mitigate risks as much as possible.
Implement easy to understand technology in your business
Fuji Xerox products are designed to be "user-friendly" with an array of useful capabilities such as:
The ability to detect people walking to the multifunction device. This tells the machine to change out of 'Power Save' mode and be ready instantly for use.
Easy to use icons for as many applications as you choose.
An interactive screen that allows for left-right and up-down swipe access, just like a tablet or smartphone.
Easy to change toner and drums. This process is also very simple with colour coded consumables. If someone has difficulty recognising colours, there is a big initial for each colour on the cardboard packaging.
An Online Support Assistant which is there for anyone to access. It plays tutorials via video, Youtube and uses example photographs.
The device supports multiple languages including Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified/traditional), Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese, and can be easily switched to accommodate different users.
A 'Help' facility allows users to request assistance during the process they are currently engaged in.
Why is our solution different to other technology?
FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia is leading the way in digital printing services. Our NT staff have been trained in the latest technologies and have seen business systems positively transformed across Australia. We are bringing these advances to the Northern Territory and helping local organisations save huge dollars and increase their productivity.
Digital advances can only be helpful if you have the right support and understanding. We are different from other providers because we know our products well and can suggest the best ones for your business. Each organisation is different, and automation will mean something different to each of you. Thanks to the many features offered under the Smart Work Gateway, we can cater to your specific needs.
It's time to take a serious look at your business and understand exactly where you could be saving time and money. Digital advances are transforming workspaces and we're eager to help you optimise yours.