There’s a particular kind of business expense that never gets scrutinised the way it should. It doesn’t appear as a single line item. It doesn’t trigger a budget conversation. It just quietly accumulates – in toner orders that didn’t need to happen, in telephone systems nobody knows how to manage, in printing volumes that nobody is tracking, in document processes that take three people to complete what should take one.
Office automation – printers, copiers, PBX telephone systems, and document workflows – sits in this category for most businesses. It was set up years ago, it more or less works, and nobody has looked at it seriously since.
That neglect has a cost. And for most businesses, it’s higher than they realise.
The managed print problem nobody is measuring
Print is one of the most consistently underestimated operational expenses in the average office. Studies suggest that most businesses spend between 1% and 3% of their annual revenue on printing – and that the majority have no clear picture of what they’re actually spending.
The problem isn’t the hardware. It’s the absence of management. Devices that are the wrong size for actual usage. Consumables purchased reactively rather than on contract. Maintenance called in at breakdown rather than scheduled proactively. Multiple devices from multiple vendors on multiple support agreements, none of which talk to each other.
Managed print services replace that chaos with a single, right-sized solution – the right devices for actual usage patterns, consumables supplied automatically, maintenance included, and a single monthly cost that makes budgeting straightforward. For most businesses that make the switch, the cost reduction is immediate and measurable.
The telephone system that time forgot
PBX telephone systems are another area where businesses tend to inherit a solution and never revisit it. The system works – calls go in and out – and so it stays, long after it has stopped being the right fit for how the business actually operates.
The cost here isn’t always financial. It’s operational. A PBX system that can’t support remote working, that lacks call routing flexibility, that requires an external engineer for every configuration change, or that runs on hardware that is no longer properly supported is a drag on productivity that compounds quietly over time.
Modern PBX and unified communications solutions offer significantly more flexibility – hunt groups, call recording, auto-attendant, integration with CRM systems, and genuine support for hybrid working – at a total cost of ownership that is often lower than maintaining ageing infrastructure. The barrier is usually inertia, not economics.
Document workflows: where time goes to disappear
Beyond hardware, the way businesses manage documents – approvals, filing, retrieval, distribution – is an area of almost universal inefficiency. Paper-based processes that require physical sign-off. Shared drives with no logical structure that everyone navigates differently. Approval chains conducted over email that create version control problems and audit nightmares.
Document management and workflow automation addresses this at the process level. Digitised approvals, structured filing, automated routing, and controlled access don’t just save time – they reduce error, improve compliance, and make the business meaningfully easier to audit and manage.
For businesses in regulated industries, or those with significant document volumes, the operational case is straightforward. But even for smaller operations, the cumulative time saved across a year is substantial.
The real cost of doing nothing
The argument for leaving office automation as-is usually comes down to one of two things: the upfront cost of change, or the perception that it isn’t broken enough to fix.
Both are understandable. Neither holds up under scrutiny.
The upfront cost of a properly managed OA solution is, in most cases, offset relatively quickly by the reduction in unmanaged consumable spend, reduced downtime, and the consolidation of multiple vendor relationships into one. The total cost of ownership picture almost always favours the change.
And the “not broken enough” argument misunderstands what broken looks like in this context. A printer that jams twice a day is broken. A print environment that costs 40% more than it should, because nobody is managing it, is also broken – it’s just harder to see.
What to actually do about it
The starting point is an honest audit. What devices do you have, where are they, and how are they actually being used? What are you spending on consumables, maintenance, and support – across all vendors, all contracts, all devices? What does your telephone infrastructure look like, and does it still fit how your business operates? Where are your document processes creating friction?
Most businesses that go through this exercise are surprised by what they find. Not because the problems are dramatic, but because the cumulative picture is clearer than expected – and the case for change is stronger than they assumed.
Red Alert CONNECT offers managed office automation services covering print and copy, PBX and unified communications, and document management – designed to simplify, right-size, and properly manage the technology infrastructure that keeps your business running. If you haven’t looked at your OA environment recently, it may be worth the conversation.