The Benefits of Managing your Printing

A recent white paper outlines some opportunities for improvement within companies who manage their printing strategies. According to the paper, “Many financial executives are excited to learn about our managed print services strategy that helps them manage expenses, boost productivity and free up IT resources along with minimizing their carbon footprint.”

Manage Expenses
You cannot manage what you cannot measure. A managed print services strategy should begin with a comprehensive assessment of your current situation. The goal should be to discover the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your office printing. This assessment provides both a baseline to measure improvement and a snapshot of the current situation to uncover improvement opportunities.

Understanding your current situation gives a baseline to work with to contain the growing costs. Your print management strategies can be compared to this benchmark to assess the effectiveness of the program.

Minimize Carbon Footprint
Proactively managing your fleet of printers also enables implementation of strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of your company. Reducing paper usage not only reduces the amount of trees consumed by your company, it also helps offset the rising cost of printer paper.

The most obvious place to start is by reducing paper usage. There are several practical ways to do this. You can leverage duplex or two-sided printing to cut paper usage. Some companies leverage electronic forms technology to eliminate the use of costly pre-printed forms. You can also reduce electrical usage by ensuring power-saving measures are implemented to put the systems in standby mode during slow usage times. Fleet optimization could include consolidating redundant devices, further reducing your electrical usage and costs.

Boost Productivity
One concern that many clients have about an optimized printing strategy is how it will impact their productivity. If productivity is hampered in the process or reducing costs, there is no benefit. Fortunately, a well-implemented managed print strategy can boost productivity. At the most basic level, employees will face less distraction from printers that are broken or out of toner. Unlike most IT departments that simply respond to broken systems, a preventative maintenance strategy combined with an automatic supply restocking program ensures your fleet is operating consistently.

Re-deploying the right systems to high-volume locations can also enhance productivity. In our quarterly reviews with your print management partner, you can continually explore for ways to help boost productivity. Sometimes this may include refreshing technology to provide new functionality where appropriate.

Free Up IT Resources
Perhaps the biggest cost savings can be found in a more productive IT department. IT resources are some of the most costly inside a company. It doesn’t make sense to use these resources to fix mechanical devices like printers. Instead of fielding calls from frustrated users with printer issues, your IT team can focus on core initiatives like security and new software deployments.

The next part of the white paper details how strategies on how to obtain these benefits. They include:

1. Stop Buying Equipment

2. Discover What You Have

3. Outsource Printer Management

4. Optimize Your Fleet

At the SBDITC, we understand that not all of these strategies may work for small business owners, but some may be worth exploring. How do you keep printing costs down at your business? Share your best practices in the comment section below.