Most people are now convinced that having office printers at business or office is a thing of the past since most businesses have started going paperless and switching over to digital documents. This means storing documents on online servers and helping out the environment with less carbon footprint and not to mention how digital documents are easier to share and edit because there are so many different formats such as Word, Excel, PDF, etc available and lots of their tools available including the conversion tools such as PDF to Word, Excel to Word, Excel to PDF, JPG to PDF, etc.
However, going paperless doesn’t mean that you won’t be requiring office printers or hard copies of the documents because if you are going completely paperless then it will hamper the growth and success of your business and your competitor may beat you in the race.
To be a successful business, you must incorporate both digital and physical documents into your business plans. Here are some reasons why we think it is imperative to have office printers:
1. Your Customers/Clients May Not Be Paperless
Just because your business has gone paperless doesn’t mean that all of the other businesses onboard and customers are on the same page. Your business strike may be different from other businesses and complete elimination of office printers might not work for them as it is working for you.
Here is an example: You have to send invoices to your clients about the products that you purchased for them and your company is digitally based and operating paperless so, you will most likely deliver the invoice online in the form of a PDF but if your client is a small company that doesn’t rely much on digital work and rarely use a computer then they will not be able to read the PDF files and view their invoice. This will not only be an inconvenience for your client but also for you.
This all would become much easier if you had an office printer in the office using which you can easily print the invoice and parcel it to your client.
2. Technological Issues and Crashes
This is something that you needn’t be told that computers can crash and so can servers and in worst-case scenarios, all of your company’s documents, personal data, invoices, memos, receipts, etc can be lost permanently, leaving you in a state of despair.
Now it does not mean that you make a physical copy of every document that is related to your company since that would be unnecessary and will be putting a burden on the environment but for the sensitive documents that are required and that you cannot afford to lose in any way.
So, if you have an office printer available then you can use it to take printouts of important documents which can include client information, employee information, company policies, accounting details, etc.
3. You Have Got Real Mail
There is one thing that you might be missing off on and that is real mail. There is certainly a trend going around that people are usually switching over to email instead of real mail but people now take real mail more seriously than they take email. Plus, it still feels good to get something in the mail that is addressed specifically for you.
This can be a great business strategy and you can use printers to print out small mailers and coupons to your customers in the mail to show them that you care about them and it shows your dedication to your customers as well as making them feel special. When sending out mail, you can add a personalised message at the end which will help to grow your relationship with your customers.
So, yeah! While you might have not thought about it, this could be a great business strategy and office printers can still be very useful to your business.
4. The Power To Hold Something Physically
One thing that people like is to have something to hold physically rather than to see it on screen. It is easier for most people to work off a document that they can physically touch instead of looking it off the computer/mobile screen. Just as people are more comfortable with reading books physically because they can hold and touch, people are also more comfortable with being able to hold documents physically.
When you have an office printer available then you can provide your employee with the option to work off a physical piece of paper and also hand over physical papers & documents to your clients. Your employees can also work easily with a physical piece of paper and it could potentially increase the productivity of your employee.
