In the first installment of the “What’s Hot in Fax over IP” series, we discussed the variety of Fax over IP options available to businesses today, and the importance of evaluating solutions on their ability to meet your specific needs. This second edition will extend that conversation to a cost benefit model, focusing on implementation scenarios that can save your businesses bundles in operating expenses.

Most organizations have standard procedures and policies for handling their various business tasks. Generally, most of these are not analyzed regularly for development opportunities, quite frequently because “that is how we have always done it.”

For instance, when handling monthly statements and invoices, the cost of postage, envelop, paper and employee handling (stuffing the envelope, applying postage, etc.), the total handling cost could easily be $1.00 per three-page document. If the same document were delivered via a Fax over IP service, it would cost less than $.20. If the Fax over IP solution were implemented into a workflow process, the savings would be even greater. Extend that over the course of a year in a fax-intensive environment and the savings could be astronomical.

Furthermore, the process efficiencies of using a Fax over IP server add even more to the cost benefits. In fact, most office efficiency specialists tend to be bullish on fax automation. To illustrate, let’s consider one typical scenario:

• Your office faxes 200 documents a day;
• You pay your average employee $20 per hour (which is very low according to statistics across the nation);
• It takes an average of eight minutes to send a fax from start to finish;
• Multiply that across your 200 faxes and you have used 27 man hours.

On the other hand, using a print to fax capability with a Fax over IP server, you have eliminated every step in the manual process after sending your document to the printer, saving you nearly 100 percent of those 27 hours per day, or about $11,340 per month (more than $136,000 per year).

Or, consider a much more practical process scenario:

There are many businesses that pride themselves on their community service and citizenship initiatives, including hiring an above average number of handicapped people, especially those that have lost the use of legs due to illness of injury, such as former service men and women. In these instances, installing a Fax over IP server would eliminate the need for employees to move between their desks and a fax machine altogether. 

In fact, in many instances, Fax over IP capabilities allow them to even work from home without any efficiency loss. By combining Fax over IP and contact center applications, businesses can leverage the best of IP technology to increase process efficiencies while reducing overhead costs. A subscription-based Fax over IP solution makes the deployment process even easier and shorter.

Once the initial savings are being realized, business can begin automating processes, especially inbound faxes, like loan applications, medical forms, and insurance applications, which can all be handled automatically to further reduce employee involvement, freeing them to attend to other, more pressing customer issues while reducing overhead costs.