officeFLOW Financial Brochure

fficeFLOWOptimized Document Workflow

cost reduction

workplace efficiency

environmental sustainability

The officeFLOW Model FINANCIAL BENEFITS

however they didn’t necessarily solve all the problems

The prevalence of smaller single function

printers (SFPs) in the office environment

symbolizes a level of inefficiency.

... however they didn’t necessarily solve all the problems.

officeFLOW FINANCIAL BENEFITS

Traditional managed print services did cut some costs ...

officeFLOW Model White PaperThe advancement of real-time communication methods

and information technologies has created countless

opportunities for companies to minimize their spending,

become more sustainable, efficient and productive.

However, there are still a lot of inefficiencies in the office

environments which leave room for significant

improvements and savings.

Many companies want to leverage their existing

infrastructure and applications to cut their costs. A few

years ago, Gartner announced that printing is one of the

areas where operational efficiencies can still be realized.

Shortly around this time the OEMs and third party vendors

started positioning that now they are able to save their

customers up to 30% in printing costs if they let them

manage their print fleets.1 Studies show that traditional

managed print services did cut some costs and some

benefits were delivered, however they didn’t necessarily

solve all the problems or live up to all the hype. With

traditional MPS, the print fleet was now managed, but not

optimized. The resources freed up but traditional MPS did

not do much for process improvement.2 And finally the

extensive focus on costs potentially came at the expense

of environmental initiatives.

An optimized document workflow provides customers

with a set of functional, financial and environmental

benefits that delivers true value to every aspect of their

business.

Efficiency Compromising SFPsMFPs have become the workplace standard not only for

copying, printing and scanning, but also for integrating

into existing business applications allowing the users to

streamline their jobs, create workflows and increase their

overall productivity. However, their value is still under-

appreciated and sometimes it is difficult for the customers

to understand their ability to drive even greater cost

savings and productivity.3

The prevalence of smaller single function printers (SFPs) in

the office environment symbolizes a level of inefficiency.

As more and more SFPs are introduced into the

environment, they bring with them indirect, hidden, and

opportunity costs. The proponents of single function

printers claim that relatively low acquisition cost and

convenience are some of the benefits deriving from SFP

usage.4 However many fail to analyze the hidden costs

and inefficiencies SFPs create as these are hard to

quantify.

This paper is intended to help you understand how your

customers can benefit from optimizing their document

workflow with multi-functional devices taking the lead. It

reveals numerous inefficiencies of mixed print fleets (MFPs

+ SFPs) and shows what the true hidden costs are that

have a significant impact on Companies’ bottom line.

1. http://www.gartner.com/id=1084212 accessed on March

14th, 2013

2. http://www.nuance.com accessed on April 6th, 2013

3. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/CAP+Ventures+Finds+M

ultifunction+Peripheral+Sales+Continue+to

...-a019658531 accessed on March 17th, 2013

4. http://www.computershopper.com/feature/help-me-

decide-which-type-of-printer-do-i-need accessed on

March 6th, 2013

The average printer, copier, scanner and fax operate

well below 5% of their capacity (Gartner Dataquest).

Printers are just output devices and if a company

is looking to implement digital workflows, they need

to be able to digitize hard copy documents.

Opportunity CostIn larger companies, according to IDC Research, IT

Departments spend on average 15% of their time on

printer related issues,5 and up to 50% of all Help Desk calls

are printer related as discovered by Garner.6 This

generates significant opportunity costs for any

organization as the IT department instead of focusing on

real tasks, dedicates its precious time to taking care of

office equipment.

Let’s consider an example. The robustness and durability

of a typical enterprise level MFP could potentially replace

6-10 SFPs without issue. Consider an office environment

that has 120 single-function printers. Let’s be conservative

and assume that in this example an MFP replaces eight

SFPs. Theoretically, you can go from having 120 devices

on the network (120 IP addresses) down to 15 devices.

Considering that IT personnel spends extensive amounts

of time answering to the printer related calls, wouldn’t it

make sense that less IPs to manage would free them up to

complete mission critical tasks or projects?

According to Gartner 55% of network traffic is printer

related,7 which is a significant number and may truly be

realized when trying to implement new solutions like for

example VoIP. Although many companies may think that

this isn’t an issue today due to existing bandwidth levels,

as future initiatives are implemented the demand for

bandwidth will increase. Does it make sense to spend so

much bandwidth on printer related traffic? Additionally,

Canon MFPs come standard with Compact PDF which is

of a great value when digitizing the files and transferring

them over the network.

Printing is a background activity. It is a tool to achieve

greater results. By simply focusing on optimizing their

printing and document management, most organizations

could dramatically improve the workflows process, taking

days and weeks off critical business functions and

reducing infrastructure cost by 8-41% (IDC),8 and imagine

the business results that could be achieved if only the IT

Department and all employees could focus just on the

business not on fixing the tools.

Over Acquired ... Under UtilizedThe average printer, copier, scanner and fax operate well

below 5% of their capacity (Gartner Dataquest),9 which

raises an alert for organizations to rationalize their fleet.

The more devices you have the higher your carbon

footprint, not mention capital costs. Having a bunch of

single function devices not being able to complete

specialized tasks is inefficient. Wouldn’t it make sense to

have much fewer devices which have been fully

configured with all the necessary options? Less truly can

be more. Additionally, with a lot of printers scattered in the

office it is difficult for the companies to track their assets.

Some of the single function devices may get lost or may

not even be networked, which means they remain

undetected by the IT department.

Employee Productivity Employee productivity is another cost that is difficult to

quantify. Companies often decide to outsource their print

management in hopes of reducing their direct and indirect

costs related to office equipment. However, when

focusing strictly on cost cutting initiatives, some other

aspects of the business may be compromised. For

instance loss of productivity and low morale among the

employees could result in additional inefficiencies if the

right tools are not available. It seems like it is very

convenient to have a desktop printer nearby, but lack of

important features and functionalities may in fact have an

impact on our efficiency.

5. http://www.copytronics.com/files/CaseStudies/10-ways.

pdf accessed on March 11th, 2013

6. http://www.sovran.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/

Managed-Print-Discussion-Paper.pdf accessed on

March 12th, 2013

7. http://www.mtcweb.com/pcprinter.aspx accessed on

March 9th, 2013

8. http://www.uptimeresources.com/documents/UTR_

prntsmrtr_wp_final.pdf accessed on March 16th, 2013



50% of all printer fleets are 5 years old

or more (Information Week).

What is more, according to Information Week, 50% of all

printer fleets are 5 years old or more (Information Week).16

Older equipment wasn’t necessarily as energy efficient as

today. Obsolete devices can mean more ozone and

carbon emissions as well as more energy consumption.

The Cost of ConveniencePrint is very often out of control and simply engaging a

third party to manage your fleet won’t solve your

problems. According to Gartner 90% of businesses don’t

know what they are spending on printing.17 Having

somebody manage your print fleet will free some of your

IT resources, but not necessarily improve the overall

health of the assets within your Company. PC magazine

revealed that only 25% of what we print is really needed.18

When having desktop printers at their desks, employees

are more likely to print more. They claim it keeps them

productive, and is convenient. In fact, this proximity could

cost the Company a lot of money since many employees

would minimize printing of unnecessary documents if

they actually had to walk to a central MFP.

When having a third party involved in managing your fleet

how can you really ensure your employees print less?

Additionally, one of the main limitations of the single-

function printers is the lack of scanning and sending

feature – as we know printers are just output devices and

if a company is looking to implement digital workflows,

they need to be able to digitize hard copy documents.

Finally, when attempting to improve your productivity, you

may consider various software solutions.

MFPs are more versatile and they are designed with

productivity in mind. MFPs typically have larger, full colour

touch interfaces that minimize the learning curve and

make the employees fly through their daily tasks in

seconds. If there are any issues with the devices MFPs give

you clear instructions on how to resolve them, single-

function printers’ user interfaces aren’t that intuitive

resulting in increased downtimes.

Environmental Costs A study conducted by Gartner shows that 60% of all paper

documents originate at the printers.10 PC Magazine

discovered that 75% of print output is wasted.11 Be green

and save the planet say the billboards. In the past few

years there has been a clear shift toward a dual awareness

of internal efficiency and environmental impact. According

to the Sustainable Investment Research Analyst Network

(SIRAN), the number of S&P 100 companies who provide a

corporate sustainability Web site increased by 58%

between 2005 and 200712 and the numbers are growing.

Companies following the triple bottom line accounting no

longer want to be just efficient, they also want to be

responsible and minimize the negative impact they may

have on our environment.

They redesign their industrial processes, get recognized

certifications, and take part in green initiatives. They know

that printing is the key area of unnecessary environmental

waste, but still have dozens if not hundreds of printers in

their offices. Employees value convenience, but

convenience costs a lot of money. On average, employees

print 12,000 pages a year, averaging $300-$500 in toner

costs per person,13 and can exceed $1,000 in high

document-producing industries (Giga Information).14

Nearly 180 million trees were consumed in 2008 for the

1.5 trillion pages used on hardcopy devices (IDC),15 and

between 2,000 and 10,000 gallons of water are used to

produce 1 ton of paper, depending on the size and type of

paper (IDC).

10. http://www.sovran.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/

Managed-Print-Discussion-Paper.pdf accessed on

March 12th, 2013



12. http://www.printgreener.com/pdfs/GreenPrint%20

White%20Paper%20September%2008.pdf accessed on

March 19th, 2013

13. http://bantamdoc.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/

symptons/ accessed on March 21st, 2013

14. http://www.completeimaging.co.uk/how-do-we-do-it/

typical-print-environment accessed on March 5th, 2013

15. http://www.nuance.com/ucmprod/groups/imaging/@

web/documents/collateral/nd_004639.pdf accessed on

March 29th, 2013



17. http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Work/In_the_

Office/ accessed on March 11th, 2013

18. http://www.accram.com/docs/hiddenprintingcosts.pdf

accessed on March 13th, 2013

IMAGERUNNER and CANON are registered trademarks of Canon Inc. Because It Counts is a registered trademark of Canon Canada Inc.

©2013 Canon Canada Inc. All rights reserved.

1-800-OK-CANONwww.canon.ca

Canon Canada Inc. 6390 Dixie RoadMississauga, ON L5T 1P7

How can you ensure the hidden costs are taken care of?

And finally how about employees printing out their

personal emails, coupons or Web pages? Typical company

spends between $500 and $1100 per user per year on

general office printing, copying and faxing.19 A substantial

portion of this cost goes to pages employees never

intended to print. Gartner took a different approach and

discovered that printing and document management

represents an estimated cost of 1%-3% of a company’s

revenue. This means that on the low side a $10 million per

year organization is spending about $200,000 annually on

printing and document management. According to IDC

research by examining document production

organizations can reduce related hardware, IT staff time,

and supply and service costs by 8%-41%.20

At Canon, we believe that the traditional and even MPS

focus on costs does not go far enough. Reducing costs

should not be the be all and end all. It is a partial solution

and we only believe in complex approaches. Therefore,

we have introduced the Office FLOW Optimized

Document Workflow concept. We believe that an

optimized focus on costs which considers a balance

between process improvement, waste reduction and

resource optimization is the key to success. We believe

that an office environment with exclusive MPF devices will

provide your customers with true value and true benefits

they are looking for.

19. http://h2o15.com/Shop.htm accessed on March 31st,

2013



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officeFLOW Financial Brochure