About a year ago, Joshua made a difficult decision to leave a stable job in a reputable consulting firm in Cape Town. Three months after making such a bold decision, he moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg to start his own small consulting business.
The consulting business by nature, requires lots of paperwork! It can sometimes take days, weeks or even months to get the paperwork done; anything from Non-Disclosure Agreements, Scope of Work Documents, Master Consulting Agreements and the list goes on.
In order to get started quickly, Joshua needed document services (printing, copying, scanning and faxing), but with just a couple of small business clients on his books, investing in a printing device was not an immediate priority. He found himself heavily reliant on a local internet cafe for all his document needs. Every week, he would print, scan, copy and fax all important business documents from the local internet cafe.
For a period of 6 months, it was a solution that worked for his business, but everything changed when he landed a lucrative contract with a government agency. With this new client, it meant more paperwork and strict deadlines to meet. Joshua soon realised that the local internet cafe would not be able to meet his objective of growing his business. Left with only the choice to purchase his own printing device, he now had the responsibility to make the best decision for his growing business.
With so many printer options at his disposal, his biggest challenge was to find the printer that best met his specific requirements.
Firstly, Joshua’s line of business, especially with his new client on board, required a fairly good amount of print volume every week.
Secondly, he needed to produce a professional graphical reporting, as requested for presentations; usually at the end of every month.
Last, but not least, Joshua’s document needs went beyond just printing, scanning, copying and emailing. He now had a client that demanded strict confidentiality as part of the contract.
Though Joshua knew exactly what he would like to achieve with his new printing device, he was not sure what type of printer would meet his needs very well. Confused and not knowing what to buy, he contacted a long-time friend (Brad) who worked as an Account Manager for a renowned printer dealership in the Sandton area. Brad’s advice is summarised as follows:
Print Volume
Laser printers typically produce more pages per minute (PPM) than inkjets. Even though replacement cartridges for laser printers are relatively more expensive than those for inkjets, they output many more pages before needing to be replaced. Some printer brands like KYOCERA provides cartridge-free systems, which means that toner is the only consumable for the first 200,000 pages.
Graphical Reporting
For crisp graphical reporting needs, a laser colour printer will get the job done. Depending on the type of paper you use, you’ll realise that documents printed on an inkjet printer are more susceptible to issues with disfiguration than ones printed on colour laser printers. Given the volume of printing, the higher cost of laser becomes null and void.
Multiple Document Activities
Instead of buying different devices for printing, copying, scanning, faxing or emailing, an all-in-one printer, which is also referred to as multifunction printers, can perform all those activities. All-in-one printers have built-in duplexers to automatically print on both sides of the page. Multifunction printers will save money on the cost of maintaining multiple devices in the long run.
Taking all the advice received, Joshua bought the multifunction colour laser printer for his consulting business and says that, “The choice has been worth it. I now enjoy the flexibility of working from home at any time of the day and meeting my deadlines”.
Written and Published on behalf of KDS Direct, an authorised dealer and distributor for KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa