Remember when pundits proclaimed demand for paper would decline as more PCs found their way into offices? Similar predictions were touted with the arrival of the Internet. But the truth is we are now using more paper than ever before. According to a survey conducted by Hewlett Packard, we now print 40 per cent more documents than before we had email.

Experts hit the nail on the head with predictions that we would be using increasingly sophisticated and multifunction products, however. Now, the convergence of copying and printing technologies in the office means vendors must develop multifunction products (MFPs) to handle the print, copy and fax jobs required in today's digital office.

The trend to combine copier functionality with printing, faxing and scanning is a result of the digital revolution. Moving from three or four devices to one device that does it all can result in significant savings for business. The savings on maintenance costs, supplies and better quality output are enough reasons for corporate enterprises to demand multi-functionality.

"Digital output vendors must provide a family of products in different speed ranges that are capable of performing more than one function," said Peter Grant, principal analyst for Gartner's Digital Documents and Imaging Worldwide group. "Vendors must help sell these additional capabilities, such as print, fax and scan to file or scan to e-mail. Vendors that can provide these capabilities via an outsourcing model will benefit greatly as companies experience budget restrictions through 2002."

Nearly all manufacturers of output devices for the office offer MFP capability on their digital copiers. The printer option enjoys the greatest use at about 45 per cent overall, the fax option at 15 to 20 per cent and the scanning option at about 8 per cent. These options are becoming increasingly important to corporate and enterprise users of MFPs.

Scanning is the next big function. The latest options leverage the automatic document feeder to scan and digitise paper-based documents. This has contributed to a plethora of scanning functions, scanning software tools and document management applications being introduced into the space. Gartner analysts expect continued growth as vendors continue to deploy scanning on multifunction products.

"The scanning capability is the smallest niche on multifunction devices," said Don Dixon, senior analyst for Gartner's Digital Documents and Imaging Worldwide group. "However, the potential for growth is greater than any other in the space. The popularity and integration of scan-to-e-mail applications, digitisation of legacy documents and document management applications makes the scanning option attractive to the traditional corporate enterprise."

Companies such as Ricoh are among the market leaders in offering total solutions for documents, according to Gary Ng, manager, Knowledge Management Solution, Ricoh Document Solutions.

An application built into Ricoh's digital copiers, CopyCabinet comprises virtual cabinets that store documents while automatically indexing these documents for fast retrieval. The system allows users to directly scan, categorise and index both English and Chinese texts.

The system also allows documents to be emailed or faxed out, and can also index incoming faxes digitally, which substantially reduces paper usage as junk faxes can be deleted.

In addition to increasing productivity and reducing costs, storage restrictions and disaster recovery are also increasing demand for digital media.

"Management teams should be well-prepared to face disaster and resume normal business operations without having to pay additional and unexpected costs," said Elaine Chu, regional general manager of Kodak's Document Imaging division for Greater Asia.

Document preservation is so important in preparing for disaster recovery as the loss of crucial documents can more often than not impair a company's ability to continue functioning properly and incur both direct and indirect costs. For example, banks and insurance companies face potential lawsuits and claims in damages from customers in case records are lost.

Document preservation not only serves a contingency purpose and helps reduce heavy rebuilding costs but can also lead to improved customer service. In addition, attributes such as efficient record sharing, multiple data access, quick information retrieval and reduced storage space all contribute to raising productivity in the modern office.

Adopting imaging technology may also appeal to the cost-conscious as it is estimated that companies can save as much as 90 per cent of what they pay to store documents in a warehouse. Storage media such as microfilm, which can hold up to the equivalent of 3,000 documents per roll, and in other electronic formats also enjoy legal acceptance that is on par with paper.

Ricoh's Mr Ng estimates that the return on investment for its CopyCabinent takes just over five months with the added advantage of speedier and more accurate document retrieval.

Office solutions such as CopyCabinet empower organisations to internalise document storage procedures in a cost-effective and highly efficient manner. With the growing emphasis for enterprises to implement knowledge management and sharing systems, these applications should become standard operating procedure in the modern office.

While some companies may wish to conduct record preservation on their own, many have also opted to outsource this aspect of their operations. This is especially true for those with a large document backlog.

The advantages of relying on specialist service providers such as Kodak i Centre is that "a company saves on investment costs for hardware installation, maintenance cost and extra human resources to develop the necessary software and hardware. Customers only pay for the service of processing the document, not the technology," Ms Chu said.

Roberto Atienza, hardware analyst at Gartner Hong Kong said MFPs have other advantages: "In addition to savings on supplies, acquisition and maintenance costs, MFPs require less space, which provides a sure benefit for companies in space-conscious cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore.

"Vendors must have a clear-cut strategy in marketing MFPs so as not to cannibalise their existing copier, fax, printer and scanner products. The market awareness of MFPs in some countries in Asia Pacific is relatively low and vendors may need to invest more in educating their customers."