Despite advances in digital services, paper and printing remains an essential part of office life, writes IAN CAMPBELL

WHATEVER HAPPENED to the paperless office? Over a decade ago the hype around e-business threatened to kill off printers and paper for good, but the promise of digital workflow doing away with the most ancient communication medium never quite happened.

Here we are, 10 years later, and paper consumption is as great as ever. Ironically, research firm IDC identifies people printing out e-mail as a major culprit in driving rather than reducing paper consumption over the last 12 months. The upshot is a widespread acceptance that paper and printing will remain an essential part of office life despite environmental concerns.

Perhaps a new generation of tablets and smartphones will bring about a tipping point that makes the difference, enabling users to access digital documents anywhere and more easily without recourse to printing. Angèle Boyd, head of IDC’s research practice in document solutions, is not convinced. “Every time some kind of digital device or technology comes along we ask ourselves whether the paperless office will happen. We saw it with networks, and we saw it again with e-mail – it didn’t.”

Surveys by IDC suggest paper is so culturally embedded in the workplace that it will be hard to shift. When it asked office workers what they rely on to get their jobs done, paper forms and documents were near the top of the list.

Part of the problem is the absence of standardised tools to access digital documents, according to Boyd. “Companies are increasingly reaching out beyond the four walls of the office to get ideas for product development, but the people they are communicating with are not necessarily using the same electronic and digital systems as they are. One person may have an iPhone, but someone else won’t.”

Paper is the default medium that everybody uses. But will this change as a new generation moves into the workplace, a younger demographic that has grown up with Facebook, with no affinity to print or paper? It could happen, says Boyd, because it’s the under-20s that show up in its research as the age category least inclined to print.

Simon Sasaki, chief executive of Ricoh Europe, argues that such a change would make only a small dent in print volume. “We have tons and tons of media to manage which is why the print volume is not decreasing as expected,” he says.

The explosion in digital information is something that even the smallest firm has experienced. IDC estimates that by 2020 there will be 44 times as much data in the world as there was in 2009. The thinking in the IT sector is that a proportion of it will always be printed out, partly because studies show that paper-based documents are easier to read and absorb.

Print specialists like Ricoh, HP, Xerox and Canon are already evolving from hardware manufacturers selling boxes to service companies, helping businesses get better control over a function that can cost a business between 11 and 15 per cent of its annual revenue. They offer managed print services, providing the hardware and peripherals and only charging on a price per printed page basis.

Despite the recession, printing and output is a part of business that still slips below the cost-radar, according to IDC. Only about 20 per cent of companies in the world have outsourced to a managed print service despite the possibility of saving an average of 25 per cent on their output costs. Savings are achieved by standardising on a single supplier and deploying a few strategically positioned multi-function printers around the office rather than having inkjets on every desk.

With network managed printers, rules can be set and administered such as “scan-to-e-mail” for direct forwarding of a document, duplex printing for printing on both sides of a sheet, and personal printing that allows users to pick up their print jobs only when they physically stand by the device with a swipe card. All these features cut down on waste and increase efficiency.

In London last week, Ricoh showed how a standardised approach delivered savings to multi-site global customers like Volvo, Air France and Unilever. It also outlined its plans to take the strategy further with managed document services. With the infrastructure in place, the natural next step is to use it as a platform for improved workflow. In a networked environment, documents can pass seamlessly through an organisation, speeding up processes like accounts payable with relatively little investment.

On one level it is a harder sell, admits Sasaki. There are not the tangible cost savings of managed print, but many of Ricoh’s customers are pushing for such services. The plan is to grow a portfolio of workflow and business process outsourcing solutions, helping its customers stay on top of a growing mountain of paperwork.

According to statistics, seven and half hours a week are lost by employees as they unsuccessfully try and retrieve information from their systems. “Everybody claims to offer a managed print service so we have to differentiate through extended service offerings like business process outsourcing. We are adding new services to compensate for the danger of a decline in paper consumption.”

It remains to be seen if such services will strike a chord, or if print companies are perceived as the best people to deliver them. Right now there is still an education to be done on the first wave of controlling print costs.