Rising costs associated with mass mailing of letters are causing many companies, banks, and offices to abandon this form of communication in favor of more economical solutions – e-mailing or increasingly popular alternative technologies that enable full automation of almost all tasks related to paper correspondence handling.
According to data from the European Association of Corporate Treasurers (EACT), an average company handles about a thousand invoices per month, and a large enterprise providing mass services – even up to several hundred thousand. Data published by the Central Statistical Office shows that at the end of June 2010, there were over 45.5 million active phone numbers in Poland, and in the second quarter of this year alone, nearly 520 thousand new SIM cards were added. As one of the largest telecommunications operators in the country admitted, 95% of correspondence directed to nearly 8 million customers consists of invoices sent in paper form (2009 data).
Invoices, payment reminders, bank statements, official letters, marketing messages, and commercial offers – these are the most common items of traditional postal correspondence. A company that sends thousands of letters a month must reckon with huge expenses. Manual folding of documents, packing into envelopes, sealing, and trips to the post office – these are simple tasks, yet impossible to perform by a single employee of a secretariat, reception, or administration department, especially when time and consistency matter. And additional full-time positions mean further costs for the enterprise. This makes many companies struggling with an excessive amount of postal shipments look for alternative solutions, cheaper and more effective, which will reduce costs while facilitating the letter-sending process.
Inserting systems, which are becoming increasingly popular on the market, are successfully used both by large corporations that send hundreds of letters and postal shipments daily, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises for whom it is more profitable to purchase a functional device than to create a new job position for a person performing only these tasks. Browsing through the offers of companies providing services and devices for inserting, three groups of recipients can be distinguished – companies that purchase an inserting machine and operate it themselves, companies that own a machine but outsource its operation to an external firm, and those entrepreneurs who look for solutions based on full outsourcing – where activities related to inserting are taken over by an external company.
Owning a machine
Inserting devices automate the process related to preparing a letter shipment. Moreover, they are very simple to operate, so there is no need for them to be operated by a specially trained employee. It is enough to load the documents into the feeder, set the operating mode, and wait for the result. Those offered, for example, by Printcom (Hefter brand) are additionally equipped with an OMR code reader, which, by recognizing the recipient, guarantees that all documents are packed into one envelope. Such a machine will insert from 2.5 to even 3.2 thousand letters in 60 minutes – a result impossible to achieve with manual work.
The monthly cost of leasing an inserting device will be about 500 PLN, which is much less than the salary of people hired for manual inserting. This is a significant saving, especially for those companies, offices, or institutions that send from several to several dozen thousand letters daily.
Outsourcing inserting
An even cheaper solution than leasing would be outsourcing the entire process related to inserting. In such a case, costs are reduced to the necessary minimum.
– Although purchasing an inserting machine for ownership is an investment with a definitely faster return rate, one must remember the possibility of additional costs related to service or depreciation of devices – says Piotr Trawa from Printcom.
High costs associated with handling the inserting process make more and more companies decide to cooperate in an outsourcing-based model. In Poland, such solutions are offered, for example, by companies like Printcom, Adrex Outsourcing, or MS – Mailing Solutions. Their tasks include personalization and sorting of documents according to client guidelines, printing, inserting, and finally, safe delivery to the post office.
– The client’s role is therefore limited to making a monthly payment for the service, the amount of which depends on the number of inserted documents – adds Krzysztof Jackowiak from Mailing Solutions.
Using an inserting machine or outsourcing these services allows for saving time, money, and – what is even more important – full control over the ongoing communication process. Because, as Henry Ford said – If there is something we cannot do more efficiently, cheaper, and better than our competitors, there is no point in us doing it, and we should hire someone to do this work who will do it better than us.
Worth considering?