Q2612a cartridge
ink technology, computers & printers

The Paperless Revolution...and what to do while you wait for it!!

For at least a decade, intelligent and forward-looking entrepreneurs have considered the wisdom of taking their companies entirely paperless. Some of the world’s most successful online enterprises have succeeded in doing it, rendering the question of printing economy almost moot except as it affects their shipping and receiving. Since laptop computers became affordable, a paperless company has grown more feasible. Since the rise of the Blackberry to supplement the laptop, a paperless company has become more possible. Now, with the advent of netbooks to fill the gap between Berries and Thinkpads, very few companies can reconcile sound business practices and fiscal responsibility with continued dependence on printed documents.

Your reliance on paper and print causes your enterprise to hemorrhage money; you literally are spilling your company’s life blood across thousands of sheets of expensive but valueless paper.

Several influential business analysts say that, just as humans use only about 10% of their brains’ cognitive capacities, they use only about 10% of their companies’ electronic communications capacities. Emily McMillan, researcher for a major corporate analyst, cites just one simple example. Looking at a room full of home improvement retail executives, McMillan challenges “Think about the last memo you circulated to your leadership teams. You printed it and put it in their mailboxes, didn’t you?

“Did you calculate how much time and money you wasted with that thoughtless maneuver?” McMillan looks the executives right in the eye. The secretary cost you $20, the paper cost you another $10, the printer ink cost you at least $15, and the electricity and overhead costs amounted to another $5, and the potential damage to the environment cannot yet be calculated. You wasted $50 on a document you could have circulated in less than a second for about three cents.”

McMillan draws the bottom line. “We have fifteen of you in this room, and among the fifteen of you, I have at least ten examples of exactly this waste. That’s 150 time $50--$7500. Seven thousand five hundred dollars squandered. No justification. None. Zero.” Macmillan allows the message to sink-in, the shame to register on the leaders’ faces; still, she does not relent. “So, let me ask you before your bosses do: Just what the hell were you thinking?”

Before you make the transition to paperless

In addition to the needless expenditure, your needless printing poses an environmental risk: only a tiny fraction of business recycle their ink and toner cartridges, putting toxic wastes and non-degradable plastics into landfills, where they will leech and leak into soil and ground water for at least five centuries.

Just one simple change can correct a lot of the waste and environmental damage. If you switch from original equipment manufacturers’ printer cartridges to remanufactured or recycled ink tanks while you limit your printing strictly to essential documents, you will begin recouping all the money you have wasted. Your accountants and shareholders will see the difference.

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