Landmark research by HP Middle East and YouGov Siraj reveals challenges faced by IT departments across the region

Amr Hassan, General Manager, IPG, HP Middle East, said: "We have noticed over the years that colour is one of the greatest areas of growth in the printing market however the results of this research have been staggering. Nearly two thirds of SMBs surveyed believe they should make more use of colour printing, mainly through the use of more marketing documents. As the leading technology vendor, HP is helping more and more companies across the region enjoy the benefits of low-cost, high quality colour printing."

In the results of the survey conducted by HP Midle East & YouGov Siraj in KSA and the UAE, 55 per cent of UAE SMBs and 51 per cent of KSA SMBs confirmed that they are being kept awake at night worrying about rising printing costs as businesses continue to grow.

Moreover, 53 per cent of SMBs raised their concerns about the rising costs of colour printing with 91 per cent of those surveyed admitting to using colour printing. KSA boasted more colour printing spend, with the average being invested at $4,671 per month, followed by UAE at $4,439. The survey took a sample size of 1,402 IT decision makers of small to medium businesses (1 - 250 employees) in KSA and UAE to assess the growing printing dynamics within the ME IT Market.

Over half of the respondents (51 per cent) have restricted colour printing in their organisation to specific departments, with priority being given to marketing departments. Marketing leads the way at 73 per cent, secretaries at 49 per cent and finance at just 40 per cent.

When it comes to volume of colour printing, UAE SMBs print more pages than KSA per month, with 30,707 and 25,996 A4 pages being printed respectively.

Over 50 per cent of the respondents confirmed that internal training on how to maximise colour printing opportunities would address concerns about colour printing.

"Unfortunately, printing is still very often a neglected area of IT, though the benefits of optimizing can be significant. The opportunity to save significant costs and increase user productivity means that printing and copying optimization should not be overlooked by organizations. The research throws interesting light on how SMBs in this region think and feel about their IT and this should go a long way in helping us work closer with our customers to maximize business efficiency;" added Hassan.

The majority of colour printing for SMBs takes place in-house, with 80 per cent of SMBs in KSA print mainly in-house and 87 per cent of SMBs in UAE print mainly in house. Most SMBs are aware of the impact of colours on moods and how they influences the daily decisions of employees, partners client and customers alike, with an overall of 61 per cent claiming to agree with this.

According to recent IDC figures, the Middle East is the third fastest growing region in the world and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) IT market itself is worth US$26.9 billion today and is set to grow rapidly over the next few years. Businesses in the region are depending on information technology more than ever before and are increasingly looking at vendors for sound IT infrastructures and services to achieve their business goals.

HP is one of the few vendors today which allow organizations to incorporate colour into their printing environment by allowing proper access to colour printing in order to maximize the return on their investments. HP Colour Access Control lets IT managers choose the level of control they need, through maximizing colour value, monitoring printing by users or applications, or even billing internal departments for colour printing.