Most office support staff would want one of these - an all-in-one machine that copies, scans, prints and faxes at the press of a button.
Such convergence of technology has had companies, big and small, singing its praises for making life a lot simpler.
Citizen Watches, a medium- sized company in Kwun Tong with about 92 employees, brought in Ricoh to install several of its latest multifunctional products (MFPs) to improve operating efficiency.
The systems enabled the company to manage documents electronically and provide a centralised platform for copying, printing, scan-to-e-mail and fax, said Herman Li, deputy general manager, regional treasury and accounting.
'Before installation, our departments used numerous separate devices for copying, printing, facsimiles and micro-film. It meant we could not perform the functions through a single network solution. Also, the concept of e-documents sharing and filing was not applied in our back-office routines,' he said.
Apart from improved efficiency, the new system provides a networking infrastructure, cuts down on paper use to help protect the environment, reduces hardware maintenance costs and saves storage space and manpower for handling documents.
'The payback period of such an investment was shorter than our expectations as the technology value has been added to our company,' he said.