Is your copier giving you issues, which in turn gives you a headache? Are your printing costs through the roof and you’re struggling to find the root of the issue? Do you even know how much combined printing and copying costs you?
Well, you’re in luck! Today we’re going to look at how managed print and copy services will help you understand and control your business’ printing and copying costs.
Before we dive in, let us be out front and say Innovative does offer managed print and copy services to our managed IT clients. While we can recommend managed print for business, we know not everyone will be a fit to have their print managed by us. This article is here to inform you, not sell to you.
What is Managed Print and Copy?
Managed print and copy service is when your copiers and printers are overseen and maintained by a service provider. What that means is there will be comprehensive management of all devices that print, copy, scan and fax.
Device support, maintenance, troubleshooting and replenishing of consumable supplies (excluding paper) are all components of a managed print and copy offering. A good managed print solution should ensure efficiency, minimize waste and lower the overall cost of your copy and printing functions.
To make a long story short: You should end up saving money.
In Innovative’s case, we offer a cost-effective flat rate that typically saves businesses money in the long run. The price of this service will vary from business to business, as it depends on which printers they need, how many, how often they print and what they’re printing.
Minimizing Printing Waste
Printing costs can sneak up on you, especially if you’re not able to properly track your company’s print habits. The amount of waste a business has just in print might surprise you.
According to ethical art company The World Counts, 50% of the waste of businesses is composed of paper.
Sure, you’re going to spend some money paying a service provider to manage your printers, but that’s money being spent on something. It’s not money flatly going to waste because of printer misuse.
Maximizing Efficiency
A managed print solution should evaluate your printing and copying needs and distribute the most efficient devices that meet users’ unique needs. For example, departments that print large jobs may benefit from a high-capacity, centralized printer, while an HR person maintains a lower-capacity desktop printer reserved only for sensitive information. Monitoring and managing usage ensures devices are used appropriately and efficiently.
Solutions and Integrations
One of the great upsides of partnering with a managed IT services company for your managed print is the use of good solutions. At Innovative, we use a print management solution called PaperCut.
PaperCut gives you the ability to print securely and efficiently. It has users authenticate their jobs at the printer to make sure the right person is printing at the right time.
In addition to this, PaperCut creates printing reports that let you track all your organization’s printing. You can use this information to see who is printing, where they’re printing, what they’re printing, as well as how much they’re printing.
Having this information allows you to identify where print waste is coming from and eliminate it, saving you money and making printing easier.
Every business is going to use certain solutions differently depending on their needs. The upside to having this solution through an IT service provider is that they will make sure you get the most out of it and that it’s properly configured.
The solutions we use at Innovative are properly researched and fully integrated. We make sure the solutions we offer play nicely with the devices we sell, and that our clients can leverage them to benefit their business.
By partnering with us, you can sleep easy at night knowing that PaperCut will function properly on the printer in your office.
Security and Compliance
A great, and oftentimes necessary benefit to managed printers and solutions is the ease of compliance. Some industries like healthcare and legal do a lot of printing that involves personal or sensitive information. They can’t be printing this stuff flippantly.
Having your print and copy processes managed will ensure your print management solutions are configured correctly so that you are compliant.
Partnering with Innovative
Innovative offers managed print and copy as an additional service to our managed and co-managed IT clients. We can support your printers and copiers as well as multi-function copiers. We also offer print assessments, cost analyses and document management/security.
Part of the benefit of partnering with an IT company for your managed print is the strategy and expertise. While you could rely on a printer repairperson you found in the phone book (Are phone books still a thing?) they might not have your business’ goals and overall IT strategy in mind.
That’s not to say they wouldn’t do a great job managing your printers and copiers. That’s their area of expertise! It’s just that their service will likely stop at your copiers, while an IT company will ensure those copiers make sense within your IT infrastructure and that you have an option that makes the most sense for your business goals.
In Innovative’s case, we would come in and do a print assessment of your organization and develop a strategy around it.
Print Assessment
A print assessment is an overview of all your printing processes. Some of the things to look at are how many printers there are, where those printers are located, how much printing is being done by whom, etc.
A good example of a change that might be made is that instead of every employee having their own desktop printer, a big multi-functional device (MFD) is placed in the middle of the office. This creates a more efficient print environment.
Other Innovative Advantages
Also, if you’re buying or leasing your printers from Innovative, you can bet we’ll be experts on it. The upside to working with someone like us is that we would never sell you something we couldn’t manage. That would defeat the whole purpose.
If you’re wondering why your internal IT person shouldn’t manage your copiers and printers, it’s because internal IT people already have a lot on their plate, and printers are a whole different ballgame.
In addition to the possible day-to-day maintenance and troubleshooting that might come with a printer, it would also be on the IT person to always be up to speed on when paper and toner are needed. When you spend a good chunk of your time helping employees solve technological issues so they can do their jobs, it can be difficult to manage other devices like this.
If you’re a small to medium-sized business that’s interested in partnering with us, find out if you’re a good fit.
