Office managers and C-suite executives have a dilemma when it comes to print. Why do modern businesses operating in the digital age spend so much money printing documents?

Organizations spend a large amount of money on digital hardware and infrastructure. Most of these acquisitions are clearly able to reduce reliance on printing processes, yet employees still print hundreds of documents every day.

The truth is that the paperless office is a myth. But like any good myth, it offers guidance and direction towards a greater understanding of the way things should be.

Today’s businesses need to transform printing processes from necessary costs into value-generated assets. This means drastically reducing printing costs and establishing rules for print accountability that everyone in the office adheres to.

Managed print services help fulfill this promise. A reputable third-party print provider can assess your print environment to find the most efficient solution for reducing costs and improving connectivity throughout your entire organization.

Issues Managed Print Services Address in the Office

Handing your print assets over to a managed print service provider can dramatically reduce the amount of waste employees generate when printing. Without a comprehensive print assessment, it can be very difficult to pinpoint where this waste is occurring.

Below are some areas where Managed Print Services can help:

• Color Prints. Color prints can cost up to 8 times more per page than monochrome prints. Your print policy should indicate the kinds of documents that require color printing – such as external, customer-oriented documents or marketing materials.
• One-Sided Prints. Automatic duplex printing is a quick and easy way to cut paper consumption in half. Unless a particular document has a pressing need for one-sided paper printing, duplex printing should be enforced as default.
• Abandoned Prints. Employees often print documents more times than necessary, leaving the extras in the print output tray. Sometimes, digital versions of documents can replace print orders, and the printed documents never need to exist in the first place.
• Print Maintenance. Every hour that your IT team spends fixing a broken or malfunctioning printer is an hour it could have spent on a more strategic, value-generating initiative. Managed print services offer print maintenance as a part of the overall solution.
• Print Accountability. Managed print software like PaperCut allows management to reduce paper waste by holding employees accountable for print usage at the user level. PaperCut tracks individual prints and generates reports, giving real-time access to print data to process owners and department supervisors.
• Asset Optimization. Following a comprehensive print assessment, patterns in print usage will dictate where the highest-performing equipment should be placed. Eliminating print-related production bottlenecks and improving cost-per-page performance requires optimizing physical hardware and hardware placement.

Comprehensive Print Policy is Key to Print Volume Reduction

One of the key benefits of implementing managed print services is the ability to enact and enforce a print policy.

An organization without a print policy essentially leaves print decisions up to individual employees, who will generally use office resources out of convenience with no regard to print efficiency, cost, or the environmental impact it may cause.

A comprehensive print policy addresses this fact by establishing the types of documents that need to be printed and the way they should be printed. For example, a department that only produces internal memos on paper may decide that all its printed documents are to remain monochrome, duplex prints.

A full-scale print policy can be an exhaustive document. Obtaining optimal savings means issuing policies for individual file formats and destinations and mapping out your business processes in terms of the documents they produce.

Instead of asking your employees to memorize this policy, managed print services enforce the policy automatically. By programming your print equipment to follow the rules outlined in your print policy, the entire office can immediately begin generating cost savings with no additional training or direction.

When employees need to use print resources with exception to the established rules, it will require approval from an administrator. This ensures that efficient, cost-effective printing becomes second-nature for employees and management alike.

Managed Print Services Improve Security

Another key benefit managed print services offer is the ability to implement best-in-class security for print processes and equipment. Network-enabled office printers are high on the list of cybersecurity targets, offering a clear incentive for organizations to secure their equipment.

If your IT team is already stretched to its limit just repairing and maintaining your print fleet, they won’t have time to implement cutting-edge security solutions as well. Outsourcing these needs to a managed print services provider ensures that your print fleet is stable and secure at all times.

The ability to continuously track print users, monitor print usage, and to create comprehensive print logs are just some of the security benefits managed print services offer. DSI goes further – we will encrypt printer hard drives, establish secure connections, and even program your print hardware to verify its own firmware upon start-up in order to maximize document security.

Make DSI your managed print services provider and start reducing print costs today. Schedule your assessment with a DSI print specialist!