It might seem as if fax machines are slowly losing their popularity. But is it actually true? And if it’s just a myth, then why people still use fax in the era of the internet ? The answer to the first question is a big fat NO – fax is still as important to business as it was when it was first invented. The answer to the second question is a little more complicated. Firstly, you need to understand that many industries still rely heavily on fax, like law enforcement and health care.
So why is fax still used? Well, one of the most important reasons is that many firms don’t consider documents signed with e-signature as legal, and do not want to take the risk. For a document to be valid in court, it has to contain a ‘real’ signature. That’s why business documents like contracts or agreements have to be faxed.
Faxing documents also protects you from cybercrime. If you send very important documents by mail, there is always a chance that someone might hack your account and steal them. Research has been done that states that almost 50% of the email accounts have been hacked at least once. It is a lot more challenging to hack a file sent by fax, as you have to know the exact time, at which the document will be faxed.
There is also the fact that countries like Israel, Japan or Germany still operate with fax, and if your aim is the international market, you need to be prepared to accommodate their practices.
Remember that the things you use are just as important as how the whole company works. It is important to keep a good atmosphere at work so that people can make use of the equipment and be productive. To learn more about it, check the infographic below.
Fax machines – old school or not really ?
