Managed print services is one of the hottest trends in the IT world, but for many businesses it remains a mystery.
Although companies have been cutting down their spending as much as possible in recent years, one area has mostly managed to avoid the reductions to budgets and that is printing.
Due to the fact printing is wrongly seen by organisations as a cost that cannot be cut, businesses are still spending far more than they need to because of a lack of a print strategy.
Although most workplaces now have a recycling strategy so any wasted paper goes to the right place, this should only be the starting point for how to make printing more efficient, rather than the one measure enforced in the office.
One basic step is to ensure all members of staff are using double-sided printing whenever it is suitable to do so, but the vast majority of employees are still failing to do this, resulting in lots of wasted energy, ink and paper for their employers.
But where does managed print services come in and how can it help?
What is it?
Managed print services is the name for the process by which a print strategy can be assessed, with wastage clearly identified, then the necessary changes being made to improve matters.
Firms embarking on a managed print services plan can typically save as much as 30 per cent from their print spending, so this can be a great way for companies to reduce the amount of money being wasted in their budgets.
Plenty of offices are still running a wide range of devices – from printers and copiers to fax machines and scanners – despite the fact that they are old, use a lot more energy than necessary and have been replaced by more efficient new technology.
Often, a business using managed print services will find they can get rid of these old, outdated devices and instead replace them with new machines such as multifunction printers, which can typically do all the same jobs but much more efficiently.
This has a huge range of financial benefits for the company, as not only is it cutting the amount of energy it takes to run the office, it is also reducing how much is being spent on consumables such as ink and paper each month.
Environmental concerns
With businesses becoming increasingly keyed in to the need to do their bit for the environment, managed print services can contribute here as well.
By reducing the number of electronic devices that are running in the workplace, the company’s energy bills come down as a result, while the firm’s carbon footprint is also reduced.
As customers and clients want to be assured the businesses they deal with have a green conscience and want to actively do their bit for the planet, rather than contributing heavily to its destruction, managed print services can be a fine way to tick a lot of different boxes.
But even though countless organisations, operating in both the public and the private sector, have been able to save huge amounts of money from their print bills as a result of managed print services, many others are still avoiding signing up to this technique.
Really, it is just common business sense for a company to do all that it can to cut its energy bills and run a more efficient workplace. One of the key benefits of a managed print services system is that it can help to save time for workers in the office, which in turn makes them more productive, resulting in a boost for the bottom line of the company overall.
Although managed print services has seen an explosion in popularity in recent years, it seems as though there is still a long way for the tactic to go in the coming months and years.