The Beauty of the MFP

So, I made a cold call to a medical practice this morning…..”Hi Jim, my name is Aaron Petersen with WJ Office. I am calling to see if you might have a moment to discuss your printer and copier network at your practice with me and to see if we can get together to look at some of our time/money saving products and services”. “Thank you for calling Aaron, I did actually read the email you sent me the other week and I am glad you followed up. I don’t think that we have a need right now. We have two [enter name brand here] printers and a desk top scanner and that is working just fine. You see we, like most people, are trying to go paperless and we are almost there, and we only use the printer when absolutely necessary”.

A whole slew of questions came to mind here and a pain point came out as we were talking! ”Aaron, Come to think of it though, I would like to be able to receive faxes to a folder or email. This would help reduce paper as well. Maybe we should make time to sit down for a moment and review what I have and see if you can help me out there and maybe see some better ways of handling our information”.

Now, Jim and I haven’t had our meeting yet, but it occurred to me that a simple MFP offers so many solutions to the business world. We all know they are not just copiers anymore but I think we have a tendency to overlook the day to day value they bring. Copying, scanning, faxing, and printing, affect our daily lives at work in such a way that if you don’t have one, it is my opinion that you are working much harder on many tasks than you need to be and while the traditional function of a copier or printer was to print, print, print, now days they can save, save, save.

Take this scenario for instance, Company “X” just sent you a document that you need to sign (and they don’t accept digital signatures J). First you have to print it out, then you have to sign it, and then you have to send it back somehow. If you just have a printer, your process is going to be…..print it out in one area, sign it somewhere, then go either scan it to email and send out an email, or if you don’t’ have a scanner (shame) then you have to go over to the fax machine and hope you don’t have to resend it. With an MFP, you read the document digitally, print it to the MFP, sign it on top of the MFP, and email of fax it from the MFP. SIMPLE. Saves time. Save money, and makes you more productive. Take scenario number two, In Jim’s case mentioned above, he wants to receive faxes for his practice and only print them out when he wants. With an MFP, a simple fax to folder protocol can be set up and now his paperless initiative has become a reality.

Bottom line……….there are a pletethora (cool word – made up) of time saving and money saving opportunities to be had with a good MFP. Spend the money, take the tax deduction, and get more productive!