Whether companies are operating within an office space or from a remote location, they are all looking for a solution to the infamous question: what to do with our fax machine? Take the healthcare industry for example. According to a recent Consensus Cloud Solutions Industry Survey of more than 1,300 hospital and health system participants – which tend to have all of the top communication methods at their disposal – 61% said they still use paper-fax to send documents externally. This data suggests our industry needs to expand the understanding and use of technologies that can fuel more widespread adoption of secure, reliable, and inexpensive interoperability alternatives. Yes, fax machines can be a good tool to utilize in an office space, assuming everyone in surrounding offices also has access to an in-house fax machine and can therefore receive documents sent by your organization. However, this is not always the case. Many are looking to make the switch to a more affordable, secure, HIPAA compliant, and reliable way to utilize fax as a way to send documents, ensuring they can reach all clients and business partners alike. So, what is the solution, you might ask? Look no further than eFax Corporate – the digital cloud fax solution chosen by businesses in virtually every industry to distinguish themselves from the competition.
Digital cloud fax technology has long moved from a document transmission method to a digital workflow that is secure and far more efficient than fax machines or conventional fax servers. In part two of this six-part series, we’re going to dive into the cost-effectiveness of eFax Corporate and what that means for your business.
Many Costs are Often Overlooked
When most organizations think about how much they’re paying to send or receive a typical paper fax using fax machines or conventional fax servers, most can think of only a few of the many costs required to operate their existing fax environment. They’ll cite the individual fax’s pro-rated share of paper, ink, the telco line, and, if they own classical fax servers, the cost of the software and maintenance as well. But those are only the surface-level costs of a legacy fax infrastructure.
There are many other costly inputs required to operate an enterprise’s fax machines or servers, such as:
• Labor costs: employees waiting at a fax machine, redialing busy numbers, scanning or copying fax docs, filing or shredding hard copies, etc.
- IT resources required to fix machines, reboot crashed fax servers, replace ink or toner cartridges, etc.
- Maintenance contracts and the costs of third party upkeep to aging fax machines and fax servers.
- Data center rack-space costs for off-site fax servers.
- Energy costs: the recurring costs of powering fax servers and the fans needed to keep them cool.
- Telco lines – since lines are static to their location, only local numbers or toll-free numbers can be used, adding to operation costs from telco usage.
All of those hidden costs go away in a cloud environment.
The Risky Business of Maintaining a Traditional Fax Infrastructure, its Material, and Hidden Costs
Digital cloud faxing is an eco-friendly, pay-for-usage solution that is an excellent alternative to analog fax machines and in-house fax servers as it can reduce the cost of lost time from manual faxing. Instead of having to print, scan, upload and file loads of important documents containing private information, cloud fax allows you to handle everything online. With a digital cloud fax solution like eFax Corporate, all important documents and pertinent information are kept in one place, reducing your paper-based workflow. Not only does this allow you to save on printing costs, but it also allows clerical staff members to handle documents in a timely manner and move on to activities that are more valuable to your business.
Cloud fax also simplifies and reduces the cost of management and control of fax services because you don’t have to manage all those fax machines or servers. With cloud fax, organizations save capital costs as there is no need to make an investment in IT infrastructure. This also allows your organization to spend less time setting up in-house hardware or calling maintenance to solve issues onsite that might be delaying your services.
Another plus? eFax Corporate bills customers on a per-use basis, so they only pay for what they use.
The Big Savings of Digital Cloud Fax Technology
According to research conducted by eFax Corporate, by eliminating many of the time-consuming elements of receiving a fax on a fax machine, and instead having that fax delivered as a PDF to a recipient’s email, cloud faxing helps businesses save roughly 85% of the labor-related costs of handling inbound faxes—dropping the average cost from $1.55 to just $0.22. And because organizations who adopt cloud faxing will no longer have any infrastructure to manage, the costs of paper, ink, maintenance contracts, dedicated fax phone lines, and the valuable IT resources devoted to troubleshooting traditional fax machines are all eliminated.
Cost-Savings in Action: McCabe Group Case Study
The Boston-based construction group relied on the fax machine as a means of receiving documents such as contracts, blueprints, drawings and plans to get the job done. However, company project managers had to find an outlet near work sites from which to send and receive information via fax or head all the way back to the office. This process was holding up work and costing the company hundreds of dollars per week per person.
The company needed to find a cost-effective way to send and receive architectural drawings, blueprints, contracts, plans and sketches remotely. Most of the time there is no electricity on site, let alone a telephone line. Mobile fax machines were considered. However, after researching the costs involved and the inconvenience of portable outlets, toner, reams of paper and the fax machine itself, this solution was not an option and still required an electricity supply.
Finally, McCabe turned to eFax Corporate, which enabled the group’s employees to receive faxes as PDF or TIFF files in their individual email inbox. Each user has access to inbound/outbound information on the move, eliminating the need for fax hardware, supplies and maintenance. They also stored files electronically. Never again would information be destroyed, mislaid, or held up.
According to McCabe Group IT Manager, Nigel Kilford: “We were reliant on paper-based systems which were messy, time consuming and easy to lose. eFax has drastically decreased our downtime by 40 hours per week per person, that’s around $1,300!”
Cloud Fax is the way to move paper workflows interoperable, digital, and cost-effective
Cloud-based document exchange eliminates the need for standalone, analog fax machines, dedicated phone lines, and maintenance. This technology will further empower workflow improvements in virtually every industry, pushing them toward better overall staff productivity and efficiency.
In addition, eFax Corporate allows companies to transmit documents digitally for quick, reliable, private access, and is managed in a secure and paperless environment. Whether you are in the office or on the go, documents can be sent to anyone from anywhere as long it is sent from an Internet connected device.
In part 3 of this blog series, we’ll discuss the reliability of cloud faxing as many organizations still unknowingly put their information at risk daily, reinforcing the need for a secure and industry compliant fax transmission service. For more information, please visit www.enterprise.efax.com.
