Office workers find printers more important than PCs

If you’d asked me what the most used item in the office is, I’d probably tell you the watercooler. But, according to new research, the most important one is the printer.

Yes, the printer is more important than the computer. Or the pen. Or the stapler.

The research was conducted by Danwood on 1,000 office workers. Out of that thousand, 81 percent cited the printer as the most important, followed by pens (73 percent), staplers (71 percent) and computers (70 percent).

Almost half of the workers polled (46 percent) said print something every day, with 80 percent saying they need these printed documents to get their work done.

Reviewing, posting, handing out presentation material, filing and audits, as well as annotating, were the key drivers for printing, it was said in the report.

But the idea that humanity is wasting resources and that we should save on everything, paper included, is taking its toll, as 73 percent said they are trying to rely less on print. There’s much work to be done in that respect, as it was discovered that 28 percent print multiple copies because of low print quality, or because they had misplaced the original.

"Paper is embedded in the way we work and it’s clear that printed documents will not be eradicated, however by assessing the complete document lifecycle, streamlined processes can be introduced to make businesses work better, faster and more efficiently", says Wes Mulligan, CEO at Danwood.

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