Printing costs have fallen
The actual cost of putting toner marks on paper has decreased significantly over the past 18 months. If a client has not reviewed their printing and photocopying technologies in this time, the likelihood is that they are paying too much.

TCO - The Facts
Everyone talks about TCO (Total cost of ownership) when selling printing and copying technology but clients should always dig beneath the surface to understand what's included in the TCO so that direct comparisons can be made between vendors.

Assumptions - The Fundamental Flaw
Accurately determining a client's current total cost of ownership is the stanchion for any replacement or optimisation of the fleet. There are two key numbers that are used, firstly the number of pages printed (or copied) which is called the 'volume' and secondly, the cost per page of each device being examined. The problem is that often one or other or both of the key numbers cannot be accurately determined and so assumptions are used. The view of the industry is "assumptions are fine, as long as the client agrees with them" but unless the client is an expert in the field, they are unlikely to know if the assumptions are valid or not. Many organisations have a set of standard assumptions which may or may not be valid for your business.

TCO then becomes a matter of volume x cost per page and if both are assumptions volume x cost per page = error.

Our advice is to have any assumptions checked and validated by a truly independent source, otherwise there is a real risk that your business case won't work in reality. Grass Media offer a low cost 'proposal review service' which will help clients ascertain if the business case can be relied upon.

How much did we save?
When clients start down the route to optimising their document output fleet and their costs, we are often offered savings between 20% and 40% but it's astonishing how many clients forget that once the solution has been implemented, 12 months hence. The reasons for this apparent financial amnesia are many but the most common include a change of staff for the client or the vendor where all detail has become lost in the fog of change or, more usually, in implementing the solution a lot will have changed, the solution may have an entirely new complexion, facilities, software and support enhancements may have been introduced and then it becomes almost impossible to compare like with like. However, there are ways to establish the common denominators and make like for like comparisons possible. Clients should be benchmarking their costs annually, especially while market rates are in a state of flux. What was a great deal when you signed up 12 months ago may not be so good now.

How much toner do we use?
An organisation with 500 staff will use enough toner in one year to cover almost 3 football pitches.

How much paper do we use?
In a single year, an organisation with 500 staff will use enough paper to cover over 56 football pitches. Imagine the size of 11 football pitches and this is approximately how much paper we can save through awareness training alone.

How many trees do we use?
One fully grown tree can produce around 12,000 A4 pieces of 80gsm paper and that approximates to one tree per person per year in an office environment.