{"id":441,"date":"2015-08-24T11:19:25","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T09:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.retarus.com\/blog\/en\/how-%e2%80%9cfunky%e2%80%9d-is-the-fax-actually-these-days"},"modified":"2024-05-29T14:25:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T12:25:51","slug":"how-funky-is-the-fax-actually-these-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retarus.com\/blog\/en\/how-funky-is-the-fax-actually-these-days\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u201cfunky\u201d is the fax actually these days?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This question was investigated in a comprehensive article last week in the venerable Financial Times on the future of business communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the banner \u201cFaxes at Work: From funky to clunky, but holding on<\/a>\u201d the article included the opinions of numerous industry experts, including those at Retarus. And to be sure, at least since e-mails<\/a> and SMS<\/a> started their victory march through our daily office work, the obvious question has been how widespread the use of fax currently is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dependable standard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Author Jeevan Vasagar\u2019s numerous research examples show impressively that there continue to be compelling use scenarios for this means of communication. Fax serves as a reliable communication standard where sectors or business partners with widely differing degrees of \u201ctechnological advancement\u201d meet each other: In such cases the medium, and especially the standard which has proven itself over decades, proves particularly advantageous. As Retarus CEO Martin Hager highlighted to the Financial Times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWith a fax one doesn\u2019t need to know who\u2019s at the other end, or what technology they have. You just need a telephone number, and the document comes out the other side \u2014 no matter whether as paper or as an entry into a computerized scanning system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is a sentiment that Shally Tshuva of business consultants Deloitte wholeheartedly agrees with. Fax helps to close technology gaps because it reaches individuals, who mostly don\u2019t spend the majority of their days in front of a PC – such as those working in crafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even the otherwise fully digital internet economy has also long since discovered fax for its own business models<\/a>, as Martin Hager points out in the interview. In this way, online delivery services use fax transmission to automatically forward food orders which have been received digitally via a website or from smart phones to partner restaurants and takeaway providers. In the hectic gastronomy business, orders received on paper are simply the most practical to handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOn the one side there are the smart chaps in Berlin,\u201d says Mr. Hager. \u201cAnd on the other are people who need delivery slips and bills on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Financial Times also quotes a study by market researchers at IDC, in which more than half of the 1,000 US companies surveyed stated that their fax use has remained constant over the past year. Just under a fifth of the companies even confirmed that they are now using the transmission technology more often once again. By contrast, hardly any of the study participants spoke of turning away from fax entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n