Print Management

Nowadays, everyone is looking for ways to cut down their carbon footprint. Unfortunately, it can be fairly expensive to “go green”. Having a green printing strategy can help you save money at the same time as saving the environment.

Office printing consumes a lot of paper and energy. Based on average usages, it is very easy for your office to contribute tens of thousands of pounds of greenhouse gases to the environment a year.

One simple and effective way to reduce your office’s carbon footprint is to set your printers and copiers to default with two sided printing. By turning two pages into one, you can reduce paper usage by 50%. This small step can save up to 60 trees annually and eliminate up to 14,000 lbs of greenhouse gases. It could also save your company money by using less paper!

Another step to take would be to consolidate your printing and copying devices. These machines use a significantly less amount of energy. By consolidating with a multifunction system you use fewer devices and therefore you require less energy to operate them. This will save you money in electricity costs and also reduce greenhouse gases.

Implementing a green printing strategy can give you the peace of mind that you are reducing costs while preventing harm to the environment. continue reading...

It is very easy for your IT team to become overwhelmed by end user issues and lose sight of your company’s core business initiatives. Many of these end user issues relate to office printing. Paper jams, offline systems and supply shortages consume IT professionals because rarely can they fix these issues remotely.

Luckily, there is a solution. Managed Print Services (MPS) can help your IT personnel focus on their tasks. Furthermore, MPS will make your entire printer fleet more efficient and cost effective by eliminating printer management from the tasks of your IT team and providing the following services:

· On Site Service: A certified technician will come to your office to take care of any service issues with your devices.

· Maintenance: Like all mechanical devices, printers require maintenance. With MPS, your devices will receive preventative maintenance to minimize printer downtime.

· Help Desk Support: MPS provides your end users with a number to call for all their printing questions, reducing distractions to your IT department.

· Supplies Management: Manage Print Services will monitor supplies for all your various devices. You will receive supplies as necessary to avoid extra storage needs without being stuck without supplies when necessary.

IT resources are critical to the success of your company. Now you can ensure your IT department can stay focused by enrolling in Managed Print Services. continue reading...

Did you know that documents can cost your business up to 3% of your annual revenue? And a large portion of this expense comes from office printing. However, when properly managed, you can reduce your printing expense by nearly 30% while simultaneously increasing productivity in your office.

The first step to decreasing costs is to centralize the purchase of printer supplies. Often times, print supplies are purchased by individuals or departments. Furthermore, print cartridge expenses become buried in supply budget lines, making print costs impossible to track.

By centralizing your printer supply purchasing, you will be able to take advantage of several vital benefits, including:

· Management Control: By moving printer operation costs from departmental supply budgets to a single manageable line item you will be able to easily identify the areas that have the highest print costs

· Lower Costs: Take advantage of centralized purchasing by consolidating print cartridge purchasing. Supply orders can be made in bulk and inventory can be reduced to lower total costs.

All it takes to start saving is a print management assessment. We can help you identify printer cost savings and employ tactics to lead to a more profitable print environment. To learn more, contact us today. continue reading...

The health of the environment is a pretty hot topic these days. Hybrid vehicles, biodegradable packaging and reusable grocery bags are just some of the ways society has been inundated by environmental friendly technologies.

It didn’t take long for companies to realize they need to reduce their carbon footprint, too. However, in today’s tight financial economy, it can be hard to adopt expensive albeit green technology. Luckily, designing and implementing a green printing strategy can help save the environment and save money.

A green printing strategy starts with the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of office printing by targeting paper usage and energy usage. When these areas are optimized, the combined environmental and economic impact is amazing.

1. Reduce Paper Usage

It take almost two thirds of a tree to create one case of paper and the production of a single ton of copy paper produces almost 6,000 pounds of greenhouse gases.

The average office employee consumes 2 cases of printer/copier paper each year. Therefore, a company with 100 office employees will consume 120 trees per year and releas over 28,000 pounds of greenhouse gasses just in their paper usage. With a case of paper costing over $30, the annual cost for this company would be $6,000 or $500 per month.

One simple strategy to reduce paper usage is to set your printers and copiers to default to duplex (two sided) printing. This easy step can reduce your paper usage by up to 50% and save over 60 trees per year. On top of saving the environment, reducing paper usage can save the company up to $3,000 per year.

2. Consolidate Printer and Copier Devices

Printers and copiers use a considerable amount of energy. The average office copier consumes 285 KWh of electricity each month while an average printer consumes 49 KWh. A company with 10 copiers and 50 printers requires electricity that takes approximately 46,500 pounds of coal. Burning this much coal emits 132,525 of greenhouse gasses each year and costs about $6,000.

Many companies are realizing that they can consolidate printer and copier devices with Energy Star certified multifunction systems. A smaller fleet of devices requires less energy to operate. Strategically placed multifunction systems that print, copy, fax and scan can easily lessen the energy requirements necessary and save big money. By decreasing energy usage, the amount of coal burned is greatly decreased.

Creating a green print strategy is a great way to save the environment and save money for any office. continue reading...

In today’s work environment, expenses rarely go unchecked. It is very common for a department of a company to be required to create monthly or quarterly expense reports. However, tracking printing costs can be quite the task. Therefore, many companies simply lump the expense in with other various office costs such as supplies or furniture. Although this may seem like the easiest way to complete expense reports, it may also be the most expensive.

Print management software is an easy way to control, monitor and report the printing done by your company. Not only will your monthly reports be made simple, but you will become more aware of where your budget is spent. You will also be able to use access controls to limit printing to certain departments and set up defaults to save ink and paper.

Today’s innovative print management software provides the latest techniques to help users change their printing habits and decrease their costs. The software features easy-to-use interfaces that can be used with nearly any multifunction device, even if on a network. You can even be sent notification reports when your printers are down or low on toner. This will help your office run more efficiently.

Quarterly, monthly, or even weekly reporting is made very easy with print management software. Authorized users merely log in to the software using a pin code or password to access the reports. When installing your software, you will set it up for your needs. Therefore, reports can be printed with the touch of a single button.

Never again will you have to worry about expense reports. By utilizing print management software, you will be able to spend your time working on more important things, rather than trying to collect data on your company’s printing habits. To set up print management software in your office, be sure to contact us today!

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In the office, it seems we are always in a hurry. For this reason, very rarely does anyone take the time to fix a printer. Instead, they are forced to find a different device so they can complete their task in a time-efficient manner.

Furthermore, IT departments rarely have the time or resources to fix mechanical issues in office devices. But still, they are forced to take control of the issue and organize some sort of fix, whether it is an easy paper jam or having to schedule a repair from a local company.

Often this type of situation is multiplied many times a week or even in a single day. It is not wonder why an unmanaged print environment can be a drain on the productivity of your office. Luckily, there is a better way. Managed Print Services Programs continually monitor your printer fleet and deliver valuable productivity benefits to your business.

Proactive Service: Managed Print Service means there will be someone monitoring your printer fleet for you. If a printer is out of service, it can often be fixed before it becomes an issue for your business’ productivity.

Automatic Supplies: Managing supplies for an entire fleet can be incredibly difficult. However, running out of toner at an inopportune time can be worse. With Managed Print Services, supplies can be shipped to you automatically as they are needed. This will reduce inventory costs and ensure you always have the supplies you need.

Preventative Maintenance: As with most machines, preventative maintenance can help avoid many problems. Managed Print Services will keep your devices proper tuned so they remain productive and last for years.

Continuous Optimization: As you company grows, your printing needs will change. It is important that your print environment keeps up with your fluctuating needs so everything runs at its most productive. Managed Print Services can monitor usage rates and reallocate print resources and update technology as necessary.

It is easy to stimulate the productivity of your office with Managed Print Services. Best of all, it can even save you money.

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Unmanaged office printing can easily consume up to 3% of annual revenues according to the Gartner group. Therefore, if you are searching for an area to trim your company’s overhead, your print environment is a great place to start. To control and reduce this expense there are a few strategies you can integrate.

Consolidate Devices

If you look around your office there are probably areas that have a laser printer, a copier and a fax machine sitting right next to each other. This presents a great cost-saving opportunity. Each of these devices has a separate cost of operation that comes from stocking unique supplies, supporting the network, handling repairs and service and electricity. With today’s skyrocketing energy costs, it is possible that it actually costs more to power your devices than it costs to put supplies in the devices!

You can combine devices with multifunction systems that print, copy, fax and scan in a single unit. These reliable systems can handle applications from desktops to workgroups to departments. Consolidating devices with multifunction systems could provide instant and long-term cost reduction for your organization.

Re-Route Print Jobs

Some of your printing devices are less expensive to operate than others. For the most part, high-volume networked systems have a lower operational cost than smaller desktop devices. While desktop devices may be necessary for productivity or privacy reasons, larger print jobs could easily be routed to network devices to reduce costs.

New software makes it easy to re-route print jobs automatically. You can assess your basic needs and set routing rules. For example, print jobs over 20 pages could be sent to a networked multifunction system. The end user would simply print their job exactly like they normally would. However, with this software a pop up window would let them know that their job was routed to the workgroup device as a cost-saving strategy. Applying print routing to your organization could create cost savings of 30% or more.

Outsource Print Management

Office printing costs expand well beyond the cost of printer supplies. When considering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of office printing, you need to include several additional costs:

· Purchasing requisitions for printer supplies, parts and repairs

· Inventory costs for printer supplies

· Shrinkage costs for stolen supplies

· Support costs for printer issues

· Power costs

By outsourcing Print Management to professionals, you can reduce costs and improve the productivity of your IT department. Managed Print Services programs can provide a variety of options to control the costs of your print environment. continue reading...

Most multifunction systems today come equipped with advanced access controls. Despite having a large breadth in functions, these controls are actually very easy to use. Plus, by monitoring print usage, you can reduce your costs greatly by supervising usage by department, work group, or even individuals.

Access controls work in conjunction with the security features of your multifunction to set up PIN codes or card-access for desired users. By requiring every user to log in to the multifunction, you can get a clear report on how the device is being used. You can also set authorizations based on access groups. For example, you may want your Marketing Department to have access to color printing, but feel it would be unnecessary for the Sales Department. With access controls, you can minimize unnecessary color printing and reduce your costs.

Effective print monitoring also allows you to create defaults for certain access groups. You can set print jobs to automatically duplex (two-sided printing) to help save paper. This is a quick and easy solution that will yield instant results.

Multifunction devices are often used as a gateway to a company’s document management system. Access controls can ensure that unauthorized users do not get into confidential documents. Just as you can dictate print capabilities, you can also select which users can retrieve or view certain files, folders or specific documents. Controlled access limits your company’s liability and encourages employee responsibility.

Print management has been made quite simple with access controls on most multifunction devices. Once the controls are set up, managing your printing expenses and security is a breeze. Plus, with easy to use interfaces, the set up process can take just a matter of minutes. continue reading...

By Corey Smith

When considering the many costs that an organization has to expend, one of the most mis-understood is that of printing costs.

The Gartner Group estimates that as much as 30% of organizations' print costs can be eliminated with simple print device management.

The challenge organizations have is that often there is a division of responsibility for purchasing print devices and supplies for those print devices. Different departments have different responsibilities when it comes to creating efficiencies and cost control strategies.

I have spoken with many IT directors that simply don't care how much printer supplies costs. The cost can be 15 cents for a b/w print and 50 cents for a color print but as long as the cost of acquisition of the device is low, they will buy it.

Why would an IT director be willing to spend so much on toner?

The answer is very simple. It is not a part of his budget. He doesn't care how much the toner costs because it doesn't affect his budget.

Can you see a problem here? He will spend as little on a device as possible and avoid buying anything new because he doesn't want his budget affected, so costs get out of control and no one really knows it.

What is the answer?

Your organization needs to have an over arching strategy in place. Conduct an analysis to know how much you are actually spending and then build your strategy around that.

Managed Print Services can help you to identify ways to increase your operational efficiency. They can manage your devices and balance your printing fleet so that you don't throw away dollars to save dimes.

Corey Smith is 15 year veteran of the office equipment industry, is editor-in-chief for OfficeProductNews.net and provides a common sense approach to business and technology in his blog. continue reading...