| By :
Jennifer Robinson
Since Xerox first invented and sold the first commercial copy machine companies and organisations have paid for use of the machine on a cost per copy basis. This has traditionally included full maintenance and toner supplied under a service agreement. In-fact the office photocopier is unique in the fact its one of the only pieces of equipment that comes without a manufacturer warranty from new. The photocopier has transformed completely from an ink or wet xerographic process to dry toner analogue machines and now to digital copiers. But the industry is stuck in the past, at a time where the photocopier or Xerox Machine required constant maintenance and broke down frequently. As the technology has evolved so has reliability improved and service costs fallen but that benefit has failed to be fully passed on to the consumer. One of the easiest ways to explain is to compare photocopiers to the television industry. 30 years ago the average television broke down twice a year and being a television repair engineer was a full time living. Large companies such as Granada rented out televisions and there were even coin operated televisions. However the technology changed, not only did televisions become affordable but they became much more reliable. If we look today for Television Repair in Yell in most towns we get one listing, where once we would have had 20 or 30 listings (albeit in the hardcopy yellow pages!). The same thing is about to happen to the copier market. With digital technology we are now dealing with not a photocopier but a printer and scanner. The scanner part of the photocopier is very reliable and the only weakness comes from the printing and feeding of originals. With printers customers have come to expect reliability and customer changeable units. Digital Photocopiers will follow the same way. Recyclable units will replace the need for a service contract on the photocopier and copiers like printers will come with a warranty and the main parts will be changeable by the customer themselves. This has already been achieved in printers and the photocopier industry will eventually follow. Consumer buying behavior is now changing as well. Where once a photocopier was sold by a local dealer now people look to buy online off the internet. With suppliers online a wider choice of manufacturers is available and it will be reviews by the consumers themselves that will most influence purchase habits. The hard sale office photocopier salesperson will become a thing of the past. It's now for the copier industry to deliver what the customer wants. They want reliability, they want an end to service and cost per copy agreements and they want cheaper prices. And so they should. The manufacturer markup on most copiers is 500 - 1000% and easy to change units that exist already on printers with a warranty would negate the need of expensive cost per copy agreements. In general, digital photocopiers now act as MFP's (Multifunction Printers) with scanning and photocopying as no longer the primary purpose. Slowly the idea of the paperless office is becoming a reality and both printing and photocopying is falling. This is partly happening because of the changing workforce. When email first came in people in the office were printing out all there email before they read it. Now people, largely due to the internet, are used to reading off the screen but it has taken time. It will be the customer that determines the speed of change within the photocopier market as they vote with there feet and ultimately it will be the companies and manufacturers that recognise and embrace change that will survive.
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