More than two thirds of businesses have no idea how much they spend on printers and printing…

Despite the current political furore about UK companies wasting cash and having a detrimental environmental impact, more than two thirds of businesses have no idea how much they spend on printers and printing.

In a survey of small firms, local and central government and multinational companies, printer manufacturer Ricoh found that 16 per cent were unaware how much they had spent on printer hardware, software and services in the last year. Lost productivity and repair costs were cited by 30 per cent as the hardest outlay to measure, resulting from broken machines and out-of-paper or toner queries.

Analyst firm Gartner estimates that printing costs between one and three per cent of a company’s annual expenditure, so controlling the use of hardware brings significant savings.