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01732 759725
magazine
03
Editor:
James Goulding
0780 308 7228 [email protected]
Advertising Director:
EthanWhite
01732 759725 [email protected]
Publishing Director:
Neil Trim
01732 759725 [email protected]
Group Sales Manager:
Martin Jenner-Hall
07824 552116 [email protected]
Advertising Executive:
Brett Blake-Morris
01732 759725 [email protected]
Kingswood Media Ltd.,
Amhurst House, 22 London Road, Sevenoaks TN13 2BT
Tel: 01732 759725 • Email: [email protected]
Business Info is a controlled circulation magazine. Applications for free copies
will be considered upon receipt of a completed and signed reader info card
or online form. Business Info is available on subscription @ £40 p.a. to UK
companies or residents and @ £75 p.a. for non-UK subscribers.
The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publishers
who cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.
No part of Business Info magazine can be reproduced without the prior permission
of the publisher. © Copyright 2012 Kingswood Media Ltd. ISSN 1464-8814
Design: Sandtiger Media – www.sandtiger.co.uk
For the latest industry news visit: www.binfo.co.uk
“ ”
IN THIS ISSUE
06
Agenda
Unsupervised home workers at risk of injury
10
Cover Story
The case for franking has never
been stronger
13
Mailing
Electronic alternatives to
benefit from stamp price
rises?
15
Broadband
How to boost your broadband speed.
Plus fibre networks vs. copper
19
Innovations
The best new office products
and services, including an app
that turns sign language into
text
22
Samsung Survey
What is the future of office
communications? You tell us!
29
Scanners
Scanners you can take on the
road, plus a review of Canon’s
impressive P-215
33
MFPs
How Toshiba is helping a
Manchester law firm slash print
costs
35
Projectors
Philips PicoPix projectors go from
strength to strength
36
Online accounting
Nine reasons to embrace the cloud
38
Dictation
What’s new in digital dictation
41
Office
How to use plants
to improve staff
well-being
Why send six letters
when one will do
I recently moved into a new office in
Winchester, much to the delight of my family
who, for the first time in years, have the house
to themselves (“Homeworking sucks!”). I’m
happy, too, because at last I have a half-decent
broadband service: it’s not as good as my
Mum’s in London, but it’s miles better than
what was on offer in the sticks. Getting the
service connected wasn’t easy – my first order
was lost in the system – but BT has made up
for it since with a blizzard of mail.
At a time of rising postal costs and the electronic
substitution of mail, BT’s enthusiastic letter-
writing throws up some important questions,
such as: at what point does good customer
communications become an ‘Oh what now!’
nuisance factor?; how quickly does admiration
for the efficiency of an organisation’s business
processes turn into suspicion that nothing is
properly integrated after all; and how soon does
the customer (or shareholder) calculate the
cost of all this waste and start wondering who’s
actually paying for it? For me, BT crossed the line
after the fifth or sixth letter.
My beef with BT is not that it was sending out
letters rather than electronic messages (though
it must be said that some could have been dealt
with by SMS, which BT makes good use of to
communicate with domestic customers). Rather,
it was that the content of six letters could easily
have been collated and sent in one envelope.
Doing so would have saved money, reduced
carbon emissions and made things simpler for the
customer. All worthy aims for any business.
James Goulding, Editor