UK ranks at low end of the 'document' culture

Document output devices are critical to worker productivity, but UK firms are slow to realise this

The UK is one of the least document- conscious countries in Europe, according to CRN research. Out of 1,238 European businesses polled by CRN, more than 78 per cent agreed that document output devices (DODs) contributed significantly to office worker productivity, while 71 per cent felt that documents are of critical importance to the operation of their business process.

On a country split, Italian businesses value the importance of documents the most, with 80 per cent agreeing that documents are of critical importance to their operation and 90 per cent agreeing that DODs contributed significantly to worker productivity. The UK and Holland are the least document-conscious, with only 45 per cent and 40 per cent respectively viewing document management in the office as critical to the success of their organisation.

However, when it came to implementing an office document policy, only a third of all companies polled admitted to having a document management strategy in place.

“It surprised us that the UK was one of the least document-conscious as it is usually the most mature European country,” said Jonathan Elliott, marketing manager at Xerox Global Services UK. “Vendors and resellers have a duty to make people more aware of the benefits of having document management strategies.

“The results of this survey should highlight to resellers a hidden opportunity to improve their customers’ document management,” he added.

A quarter of respondents said their organisation had complete management information on the costs of owning, running and supporting their fleet of DODs, while a fifth admitted that the costs of owning, running and managing their fleet of DODs was “spiralling out of control”.

Leon Windsor, sales manager at reseller Printware, said: “We have our own contract-based initiative called Printability. Our strategy is to have 20 per cent of our business contract-based by the end of the year. We introduced Printability three years ago, but only now is it really starting to take off.”