The Future of Documents

The report published by The Brown-Wilson group positions Xerox as the top ranking green outsourcer ! This report explores how new economic dimensions are impacting the growth of the sustainability technology sector.

Xerox is ranked “greenest” in the Document Process Outsourcing area by its clients, which is not too surprising. The criteria used included sustainability metrics, social and economic principles, environmental principles, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating system, and Six Sigma.

But even better, when asked to nominate which outsourcing companies are the “greenest”, Xerox comes first with an astounding 440 nominations! That puts Xerox in front of Accenture (429), CSC (403), CapGemini (396) and IBM Global (390). HP / EDS comes 10th, with 259 nominations.

That is a huge progression from last year’s 35th position in that same ranking. That shows that customers now see Xerox as the trusted outsourcing partner that can take them on the journey to the “Less Paper Office” – reducing overall carbon footprint of their infrastructure, using less paper, less energy, generating less waste, but also optimizing their Document Business Processes to remove paper – when appropriate- and improve overall quality.

That’s what we call “Smarter Ways to Green”: click on the video below to learn more.

Interesting article on how Universities are struggling with cost control, especially related to energy drains from their data centers and computing equipments.

Colleges and universities have been slow in adopting energy-saving techniques, due to their decentralization, and lack of cohesive strategies. A survey found out that “higher-education institutions are less likely than businesses, the K-12 sector, and federal government, to adopt a formal policy to encourage energy efficient buying decisions”. Surprisingly enough, “researchers often resist plans for centralization because they want their servers just down the hall” – although this is usually a population which is quite sensitive to environmental concerns.

But energy drain from computing equipment is just part of the story – most of these studies do not take the consumption of printing equipments. In order to get greener while cutting costs, universities should also rationalize their print fleet and document-related costs. Sure, printers represent a small amount of the overall energy consumption, but it’s always worth checking out what can is consumed and can be saved through tools like the Carbon Footprint Calculator.  And, just like the University of Calgary, they should start on a journey to reduce paper consumption. That would help them realize the Less Paper Office vision and save a huge stack of paper (one mile in their case) which amounts to many trees, but even more dollars.

How should universities go about greening up their document processes as well? The methodology detailed in the article applies here as well: start with an Audit of your current spendings in document costs, establish a task force, then consolidate and outsource or consolidate their document processes and equipments.

Very interesting podcast from John Kelly, President of Xerox Global Services North America and Thought Leader on Document Outsourcing.

In this podcast, John discusses some of the changes he has noticed in the outsourcing business in the recent economic turmoils, including new ways of reducing costs,  observations on the impact of the economic crisis on different sectors, and finally a few words of advice for listeners who are starting or continuing their journey towards outsourcing in these troubled times.