Despite a worldwide shift to digitalizing document workflow, most businesses still rely on print in some capacity. And depending on the industry, printing can be the lifeblood of an office.
As an MSP, you serve as your client’s trusted technical advisor, and understanding their print needs can be an important piece of the puzzle. When you ignore your client's print, you could be missing out on important opportunities for optimizing your client's technology suite.
Print Partner works with hundreds of MSPs throughout the country, managing the print of our mutual customers. After having a pulse on the print industry for so many years, we've observed first-hand which clients use the most print.
In this article, we've outlined five industries that consistently print the most paper documents.
1. Real Estate
“Sign here. And here. And here. And here. Oh, and here. And… there. And sign here,” says the title company to the home buyer. “And here. And here…”
For anybody who’s purchased a home: how long did it take for your carpal tunnel to go away? Months later, I think my hand is still swollen from signing hours-worth of paperwork.
Real estate is a heavily-scrutinized, heavily-regulated industry, with a desk-load of protections for buyers and sellers.
For many people, a home is the biggest purchase they will ever make. Filing errors can lead to the misplacement of thousands of dollars, and that's why every real estate sale requires stacks of paperwork.
The Chicago Tribune reports that over 2.2 billion sheets of paper are used on mortgage paperwork yearly, which is over 260,000 trees. Yikes.
I wonder, what uses more trees: building houses or selling houses? Regardless, real estate requires a hefty load of printing.
2. Finance
Finance makes this list because investors need lots of paper to print out their money. (Warning: bad joke)
Kidding aside, the financial industry is constantly evolving, with many transactions, particularly smaller ones, moving to online banking.
But a long paper trail is necessary for large money movements, like buyouts, mergers, acquisitions, etc. Stakeholders are required to sign documents to legitimize their ownership of assets.
And long paper trails aren’t reserved for significant business transactions. Even for personal finances, extensive paper documentation must be made available for investors.
And while most modern banks offer paperless and e-document options, many consumers still choose the old-school route to track their transactions on and off the grid.
“Individuals also expect to have choice when it comes to managing their bank statements and paying their bills,” reads Wise’s article on print. “Since so much of consumer banking is tied to the customer experience, it’s important that organizations give people what they want. And because many individuals still prefer paper-based filing and billing, it’s only natural that hard copies be distributed on a regular basis.”
The reduction of print in the financial sector will likely be a slow transition, as banks and investment firms will need to wait for their consumers to become accustomed to electronic documentation.
3. Healthcare
The medical field is a highly-regulated industry notorious for its outlandish pricing and complex insurance policies. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that healthcare is one of the biggest tree-eaters around.
According to Medical Finance, the average 1,500-bed hospital prints over eight million pages monthly, resulting in about $3.8 million spent on print per hospital annually.
Despite the mass movement from physical to digital records, healthcare print spending is actually increasing over time.
"We've been watching healthcare organizations," says Sean Hughes, vice president of managed print services at the healthcare tech company CynergisTek. "The expectation is that, with the advent of the electronic health record (EHR), we'd see a decrease in the amount of pages printed. What we see is the opposite -- it's actually 11 percent more. Even with the implementation of the EHR, we've taken on more data and disjointed workflow processes, and it takes more pages to account for those inefficient processes."
Healthcare has consistently been one of the most prominent print spenders of any industry, and based on CynergisTek’s research, healthcare print spending is only trending upwards.
Even when trends look positive, it can be tricky to target a specific market, whether it be healthcare, finance, or another industry. If you want Print Partner's help with creating collateral that focuses on specific clientele, read: Co-Creating Collateral with MSPs
4. Law
Lawyers are masters of printing. Or, at least, they should be, considering how much printing court cases require.
Anybody familiar with legal documentation knows that many trees fall to the court of law.
“Despite digital interfaces everywhere else in our lives, legal workflows haven’t budged,” reads an article from Law Technology Today. “Even when documents are “electronic,” the physical attributes of paper remain dominant.”
Marco, another print provider that works with law firms, breaks down the process of a motion (which can be up to 20 pages long) in court and the number of times it’s printed:
- A lawyer, with a paralegal, creates a draft
- The paper drafted is reviewed, edited, and redrafted
- When the lawyer approves the new draft, the motion goes to the courier
- The lawyer sends a copy to the court
- The lawyer sends another copy to the opposing counsel
While this isn’t a perfect summary, you get the idea. Regarding court cases and legal jurisdiction, everything must be well-documented. And with multiple parties involved, everything needs to be printed and distributed multiple times.
This is especially true for high-profile cases, where millions (or even billions) of dollars could be at stake. Lawyers cannot afford to take chances on saving money on ink - they print everything out.
5. Education
By far, the education industry uses more print than any other industry. And it’s not even close.
“A typical school will use an average of 2,000 sheets per day,” reports Records Nation, “meaning that during a full school year of 160 days, a school will chew through over 320,000 sheets of paper per year.”
There are approximately 100,000 schools in the US, meaning that, combined, schools consume about 32 billion sheets of paper annually.
TonerBuzz reports similar figures and estimates that US schools use 262 million pages of paper daily. That’s a lot of trees!
And the numbers we’re reporting are just from schools; when you consider the amount of paper that goes into educational textbooks, standardized testing, etc., it’s no wonder why education is the king of paper crunching.
Meeting Print Demand with Print Partner
This article equipped you with a basic understanding of print demand. Print is a complex industry full of obstacles, and we don’t expect you to be experts.
That’s why Print Partner is here to help. When your MSP partners with Print Partner, we take the burden of print off of your hands.
We manage print for the clients of hundreds of our MSP referral partners across the nation.
If you have clients that fall under the industries we discussed in this article, consider referring them to us for a print assessment. When you send us a client, we’ll analyze their needs in-depth and make recommendations accordingly.
For more information on our print assessment process, read: What is a Print Assessment?
And we won’t just provide clients with outstanding service; we’ll also pay you! You’ll earn at least $250 per referral, $1,000 per copier sold, and 5% on the recurring print allotment. Not bad, and this comes at no cost to you!
Not only do we pay you, but since we are not an MSP, we protect you from other print vendors that also offer MSP services. Finally, and most importantly, we collaborate with your MSP when a shared customer has an issue with print. Instead of finger-pointing through to resolution, we collaborate!
Partner with us, a Print Partner you can trust.
