Even though the number of fax machines used in companies has been declining in recent years, the love affair with fax machines continues unabated. This is shown by a recent study commissioned by the digital association Bitkom.
The fax machine. The classic of analogue communication. There are plenty of stories about the ancestor of email. As a football fan, for example, I remember the posse of current Bayern player Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting very well. His transfer from Hamburg to Cologne in January 2011 failed because a signed player contract did not arrive correctly due to a fax mishap and only arrived too late on the third attempt after the transfer deadline had expired.
The love of the fax is well known not only among clubs and companies, but also among some celebrities. Enquiries and interview requests are preferably sent to Uli Hoeneß by fax, for example. At an event organised by the "Münchner Abendzeitung" newspaper, the former president of the German football record champions said that he could live very well without an email address, saving himself a lot of work and allowing him to sleep more soundly. If necessary, he can also be reached by smartphone. However, he only uses his iPhone to make calls.
A study commissioned by the digital association Bitkom has now revealed that around 82 per cent of German companies still fax. A third of companies even state that they still use fax machines frequently or very frequently. A total of 505 companies with at least 20 employees were surveyed. However, it should be noted that intensive fax use is in sharp decline. In the previous year, 40 per cent of companies were still sending faxes frequently or very frequently, rising to 62 per cent in 2018.
"In view of the digital transformation, the fax had long been declared dead. However, once a communication channel has become established, it usually takes a while for it to be completely replaced - even if there are now much more convenient and secure communication channels," says Nils Britze from Bitkom. Overall, half of the companies stated that they only fax occasionally or rarely. In turn, 16 per cent already do without it completely - an increase of five per cent compared to the previous year.
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But Switzerland is also still relying heavily on faxes, as the coronavirus pandemic has shown. For example, the former Roche CEO Severin Schwan criticised last year that the Swiss healthcare system was stuck in the "fax age". According to Sang-Il Kim, Head of Digital Transformation at the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) until the end of 2021, many doctors' practices and hospitals continued to report a significant proportion of clinical findings from coronavirus patients by fax during the pandemic.
But why is that? Why is Switzerland missing out on digitalisation in the healthcare sector? For Sang-Il Kim, the problem is clear: "Better digitalisation does not lead to a return on investment. And every hospital in Switzerland is a business." Without external incentives, medical facilities simply have no interest in investing money.
