If it’s been awhile since you updated your office equipment, you could be surprised at the difference a new printer could make to your team’s productivity. In the old days, printers often formed bottlenecks that stopped employees in their tracks. Printers took a long time to complete jobs, got jammed pretty regularly, and were mostly seen as dumb appliances that inevitably cost time and money to use and manage.
– User friendly interfaces save time
Modern printers are increasingly user friendly with a touchscreen and buttons that are intuitive to use and often mimic the apps people are used to using on their phones and tablets. This means users don’t need to be trained before getting started; even complex print jobs can be completed easily and correctly. This means people aren’t wasting time trying to figure out how to get the printouts they need. Instead, they can get on with their core activities with the printer acting as an enabler instead of a roadblock.
– Scanning reduces paper waste and time spent organising documents
Using a modern printer’s scanning functionality means you can reduce paper waste and spend less time shuffling paper back and forth. With optical character recognition (OCR), the scanned documents are searchable, so it’s easy to find them again. With workflows in place, you can ensure scanned documents are sent directly to recipients via email or to predetermined files on computers, servers, or in the cloud. All of this automation means your staff no longer have to waste time managing documents.
– Outsourcing can be reduced due to improved capabilities
For businesses that print a lot of high-quality documents, it used to make sense to outsource a lot of this work to professional printers. Doing so would reduce the strain on in-house printers and ensure a higher-quality output. However, modern printers are more capable and can deliver the professional-looking documents that many businesses need. This means businesses can print more in-house and outsource only when absolutely necessary, reducing costs.
– Control over the quality of your printouts
Your printouts don’t always need to be of a professional quality. If you’re printing documents for internal use, especially to check drafts, for example, then you may choose to print in black and white and double-sided. This saves on ink or toner and paper. Then, you can switch the settings for a more professional output for the final draft.
