The Print Assessment: The First Step to Saving Money on Printing Costs
9 out of 10 companies don’t know how many printers and copiers they have.
After rent and compensation, printing is the largest budget item for most businesses.
It’s time for you to pay attention to print costs – and you’ll create productivity boosts too.
If you don’t know where you are, it’s hard to map out a final destination. That’s why the first step in our strategy is to conduct a thorough print assessment.
The print assessment is a vital first step to:
- Understand how much you currently spend to print and copy documents
- If you’re meeting your business needs or over (or under) spending
- The tools you need to actually get the job done
WHAT DO YOU (REALLY) NEED?
Most companies have a storage closet full of toner and supplies for equipment they no longer use (and sometimes no longer even have!). That’s wasted money.
A print assessment will identify your real print needs and volumes and then provide a recommendation for the mix of copiers, printers, scanners, and fax machines that meets those needs.
Here are some of the things we look for when assessing your environment.
- Where are you spending money now – leases, maintenance contracts, etc.
- How many devices do you have?
- Are those devices optimally placed? For efficiency or for convenience for the person in your office who complains the loudest?
- Is your printing environment secure? Do you have job release at the machine enabled? Are documents with confidential information handled appropriately on the devices?
- Are your machines old and consuming lots of electricity? Sometimes you can save energy (it adds up on your electric bill) and reduce your carbon footprint.
HOW DO WE DO THIS?
We connect a data collection agent (which ONLY tracks page counts and device status, NEVER the information on documents so there are no security concerns with this software). This software will connect to all of your output devices – printers, copiers, fax, and multifunction printers – and collect data that we can then analyze for trends. What devices are on the network? Page counts? Are some devices over- or under-used? History of service alerts? And more.
THE RESULT
You’ll know:
- How much you print and copy
- Your spend on consumables and maintenance
- Are you spending too much (obvious cost savings in MDS if you are) or too little (less obvious productivity loss from having too little capacity to serve your business)
The results allow you – and us working with you – to make decisions based on data, not on what you “think” your needs are.
Based on these results, we get to work for you, creating a combination of hardware, software, and process that will meet your budget and performance needs.
- Print fleet creation. Recommendations for your ideal mix of equipment could include all new equipment or a mix of existing equipment and new equipment.
- Workflows. The flow of documents through your business could help or hinder productivity. Software recommendations for workflow are included, as well as suggestions for processes and moving documents where they need to be in your company.
Digital copiers and printers are key pieces of your business’ IT infrastructure. Don’t ignore them. The right mix of devices and workflow can give your business a productive boost, a better bottom line, and, when managed under a managed document services, one less thing for you to worry about.
Find out if you’re paying too much to print and copy your business documents.