Office culture must have radical rethink

The hype about paperless offices has led some observers to declare that it will never be achieved. Indeed, Angele Boyd, vice president for peripherals research at IDC, declared last week at the Lexmark printing conference in Barcelona that: 'The paperless office is about as likely as the paperless bathroom.'

But as more people choose to work from home and the explosion in home computing continues, it is likely there will be an increase in paper consumption that will affect both office and home printing.

Paul Curlander, chief executive of Lexmark, said: 'As technology in the home converges, the demand for printing in the home is set to soar, as we are able to print things there that until now could only be printed in the office.'

Recent research on printing trends in the home appears to back this up.

According to a study carried out by IDC, US households are more sophisticated than some small businesses. More than 75 per cent of PC households in the US have internet access, compared with just 47 per cent of businesses with less than 100 employees.

More than half of US PC households have email facilities, while just 46 per cent of small businesses have such facilities. Ninety-six per cent of computer households have at least one printer, with about a quarter having a PC fax, a standard fax machine, or a scanner.

IDC also suggests that it is the larger organisations that are continuing to consume paper at an increasing rate. About 61 per cent of those questioned with more than 100 employees said their paper volumes were increasing, with just 26 per cent saying they were constant. Less than 50 per cent of small businesses said their paper volumes were increasing and 44 per cent said their consumption was flat.

But whichever sector is scrutinised, paper consumption is continuing to grow. It was suggested in last week's article on the paperless office in PC Dealer that all users needed to examine their printing strategies, or at least monitor their printing costs more closely.

Phil Murphy, general manager at Kyocera, believes some vendors are doing nothing practical to drive down the cost of printing. He says it is the high cost of consumables, not paper, that will finally force users to examine their printing costs.

He said: 'I agree that most users have no idea how much printing is costing their organisations, and totally endorse the idea that you can increase efficiency if you have a print reduction strategy. The trouble is, all other printer vendors offer multi printing, draft mode, duplex but don't address the unnecessary printing of documents.'

According to Murphy, this approach, as well as not directly addressing the cost of printing, leaves the reseller at the margin of the printer sale.

'The printer market is now a commodity sector, which is bad news for the reseller who has nothing left to compete on but price and delivery.

This results in continued market erosion. Some manufacturers are committed to driving the cost of printing lower, because, for them, securing a printer sale opens a rich vein of consumables revenue to be tapped for years to come.

'This isn't good for the reseller, who often only sees the revenue from the original hardware sale, since consumables business does go through stationary catalogues, consumables wholesalers and, increasingly, direct from the manufacturer to the customer,' he added.

But industry experts warned that users must look further than the paper they consume and re-think the purpose of the office to make real progress possible.

Peter Johnston, head of the EC Directorate General XIII unit - responsible for IT and telecoms - said the 'office of the future' must be radically different from today's if economic growth is to be sustained and the environment protected.

'We associate the long-term unsustainability of our economic growth with manufacturing, heavy industry and energy use too easily , and their direct impact on the environment,' he said. 'But the service sector dominates economic activity and is the leading consumer of natural resources.'

Johnston claimed 'dematerialisation' was the key to long-term sustainability, adding that reducing paper consumption was only the 'tip of the iceberg'.

Specifications for 'methods of work and e-commerce' have been set out as part of a strategy by the EC, which is giving logistical and policy support to industry-led initiatives. The first meeting of industry leaders addressing this area will be hosted by the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen at the end of the month.

The EC will examine the way people work and the office structure. 'We must re-engineer office work for the information society, rather than as a copy of industrial production,' explained Johnston.

Manufacturers will always put their own spin on how to address printing costs, but perhaps the initiative to turn this into a real issue rather than a marketing ruse will come from a higher authority.