What Are The Benefits of Managed Print Services?
Posted on 28th February 2022 at 14:13
Managed Print Services (MPS) can benefit businesses of ALL sizes. The notion that MPS contracts are associated with large enterprises and big business is false. Ignoring managed print could be costing your business money.
The benefits of managed print services scale perfectly for startups and small businesses. By effectively outsourcing the management of your printers and photocopiers, it is possible to reduce your costs dramatically and cut down on waste.
A managed print service will improve your company’s productivity: from sourcing hardware and consumables through to strategy and support, a managed print service has you covered.
If you’re wondering why print services need to be managed, or if MPS is a good idea for your business, or simply seeking to understand the benefits of managed print services, read on! We have gathered 10 points to illustrate the importance of Managed Print Services.
Minimise printer & photocopier downtime
Running out of toner, printer driver problems, adding new scan destinations and faulty devices are just a few of the problems faced when printers aren’t managed. It does not need to be this way! MPS helps you to minimise the disruption that comes hand-in-hand with printer and photocopier issues.
Keeping printers and copiers working is especially important when your work depends on meeting urgent deadlines. With a Managed Print Service, the responsibility of managing your multi-function devices and printers (supplies, maintenance, servicing) is handled by a single provider.
This ensures that everything related to ‘print’ is working optimally and that you have all the necessary support and consumables to prevent any downtime from occurring.
Lower printing and copying costs
Many companies don’t track the cost of printing, for them it’s just one of ‘those’ costs of doing business. By failing to get a grasp on print spending, these organisations simply don’t have the opportunity to assess just how much money could be saved with a managed print strategy.
The main purpose of the move to a Managed Print Service should be a significant reduction in overall printing costs. In fact, according to a recent study by UK consultancy, Quocirca, 90% of companies that implement MPS are satisfied with their decision to do so.
Consolidation of hardware, consumables and device support
Having one source of consumables and a single vendor to deal with when anything goes wrong, is a more efficient way of controlling your day-to-day print operations.
A managed print service gives you a single point of contact for anything print related. Businesses waste time and money ordering toner, replacing printers, reconfiguring printers, returning faulty hardware, ordering the wrong parts etc. MPS removes this burden and gives you access to expert advice.
Reduce the total number of printers and photocopiers
The process of implementing MPS starts with a full analysis of the company’s current print arrangements. This analysis entails a detailed print audit – this data will be used to identify areas in your print fleet where changes could be made to reduce printer count, and ultimately, reduce cost as well.
Questions will be asked such as:
Does your business need a photocopier AND a laser printer, or a multi-functional printer that can do the same job while consuming less energy?
Are compact personal printers being used by managers really necessary, or could you save money by going with more cost-effective workgroup models?
Are separate colour and monochrome printers a better choice for one team than a single colour laser?
Make costs predictable
Another of the major benefits of managed print services is improved tracking of hardware costs. MPS helps to make costs predictable so that you’re no longer faced with unexpected capex. Usually leasing photocopiers instead of buying them proves to be the preferred option. If you’re interested, you can find out more about the benefits of leasing copiers here.
Improve overall network security
The main risk with unmanaged print is that it’s all too easy for users to print very sensitive documents and leave them in the printer’s tray and forget all about them. With MPS, management tools facilitate tracking all print jobs to enhance security. This helps users and manager to be confident about what they’re printing, how they’re printing it, and why.
You’re trouble shooting your own printer issues, or worse still you’re paying your I.T. company to do it for you
Although it may seem that print costs are rising, a managed print services will make printing more cost efficient, whilst ensuring all your service and maintenance requirements are handled by experienced professionals. You won’t have to spend your time trying to troubleshoot your way to a fix, you’ll be backed up by a highly competent team supporting you.
Cut down on waste
With the right strategy, management tools and hardware, MPS can lead to significant waste reduction. Features like duplex printing (printing on both sides!) or pull-print (only printing if people go to collect their documents) can be provisioned.
Whether your motives are financial, environmental or both. Managed print services ensure less wasted ink, less wasted paper, less wasted electricity and time. This all results in a lower environmental impact and in lower operational costs.
Get rid of the risk and hassle of ordering consumables
With a managed print service, monitoring supplies such as ink, toner, or maintenance kits are no longer your company’s responsibility. Purchasing happens automatically via your MPS provider. On top of that, your MPS partner will provide you with high-quality supplies to ensure great quality prints and reliable service.
Develop and hone an effective print strategy
Ongoing analysis is perhaps the most interesting (and often least utilised) of the benefits of managed print services. A good provider will be able to provide you with regular reports that enable you to develop a suitable strategy for print in your business. Such reports will let you review hardware requirements and how effectively your end-users are using resources.
Simply put, live data allows you to take control and develop a strategy to match your workflow – you can then respond to changing needs such as mobile users, cloud users, digital transformation workflows. Your MPS provider will help you to adapt print and document management to support your plans.
Free-up your IT support team
The IT department in most organisations is already under pressure. Increasing dependence on systems and hardware leaves many teams pushed to support additional functionality with a business. More often than not, smaller businesses either have a very small IT support team, or outsource to a 3rd party.
Managed print services can play an important role in alleviating pressure on your support team. Driver issues, adding new print users, setting scan destinations, managing and replacing consumables are all covered by MPS allowing your team to focus on core business-related tasks.
Summary
By adopting some or all of the strategies of MPS your business will save money, and print will become less of a headache.
MPS doesn’t need to be a grand and complex project. If you have a small number of printers you can utilise the experience of your print provider to help keep office printing and copying running smoothly.
If you use several printers, or if you need to understand how print costs are distributed across your business, then a more comprehensive solution could be the right fit.
If you’d like to find out more about how KRL can help you to manage your office copiers and printers, please get in touch.
Tagged as: Managed Print Services
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