Document wastage costs hotels and restaurant £74 million a year

3rd December 2009, 10:22am

The hotel and restaurant industry has been revealed as one of the biggest losers when it comes to document wastage and inefficient printing of work-related documents.

Pitney Bowes estimates that the industry is losing £74 million every year through printing unnecessary documents.

In contrast, European hotels and restaurants stand to reap cost savings of up to £296 million should they tighten up on document wastage.

In the Counting the Cost of Document Wastage report, Pitney Bowes points out that, typically, colour printing run through a centralised facility can be done at a tenth of the cost of the output from a desktop device.

By utilising print management software, implementing controls, monitoring output and reorganising document production equipment to run this activity though a centralised facility, companies could cut overall costs in this area by 10% to 30%.

The research also showed that the spread in recent years of high-bandwidth communications and its attendant capability to send large attachments, along with the growth of email and web usage, has actually increased printing in most offices as employees print much of the information they receive and find online.

This trend has been accompanied by the widespread use of desktop colour printers – the most expensive form of office printing.

In addition, the study found that 50% of UK firms allow employees to use printers and photocopiers for personal purposes and, of those, 57% did not monitor such usage.

Richard Thompson, Managing Director Pitney Bowes, says: "We've found that even the smallest companies can achieve dramatic savings if they bring their printing and document production under tighter control.

"Even in centralised, high-volume document production facilities, it is possible for companies to cut costs and make these more efficient – for instance by combining administrative, customer service and promotional output volumes and printing on lower-cost equipment."

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