By Ken Pedicini
I have been in the office equipment industry for almost 40 years. After graduating from Boston College in 1979 I started with Savin Corp. at their Boston branch selling an $8,000 word processing device, which was basically a very large typewriter with no screen, and in 1983 I left the Savin Branch and launched KenMark with my now-retired partner Mark Brainson. Office equipment has come a long way from your basic typewriters, copiers and fax machines. Back in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, people used to just hit a button to make a photocopy. With the introduction of digital technology, that old photocopier became what is now a digital imaging system.
This digital imaging system is connected to your computer network, and it has multiple functions – such as copier, printer, scanner, and fax. It allows people to print documents directly from their computer, scan documents and images to e-mail, folders, or to the cloud, and print from your smart device. Within the last few years, most digital systems started being manufactured with a smart panel display that emulates your smart phones and allows you access to the Internet and your apps, as well as manage all of your document services.
At KenMark, we like to study workflow and total cost of ownership. The workflow is how a company does business, including their back-office process, document management, and more. We will analyze our customer’s workflow and listen to their needs, and then suggest a document solution that will make them much more efficient and save them a great deal of money. This may end up being an archiving solution, a scanning solution, or accounts payable solution, depending on the industry and the specific company and workflow needs.
The total cost of ownership represents the cost per page to print. While they sometimes represent a larger initial investment, the large digital imaging systems have a very low cost per page compared to desktop printers. We generally encourage our customers to eliminate desktop printers at each employee’s workstation, as they are inefficient and create greater costs per page. Our recommendation in almost all cases is for employees to print to their digital multifunctional products. By eliminating these inefficient desktop printers at every workstation, our customers realize a huge savings in toner costs.
The office equipment/technology industry today is constantly changing and evolving. At KenMark we like to think embracing change is about embracing opportunity. It is important that your print provider works to keep its customers’ offices managing documents efficiently and cost-effectively.
Ken Pedicini is President of KenMark Office Systems Inc. He can be reached at kpedicini@kenmarkoffice.com.
