Do Managed Printing Services Save Money for Small Businesses?

In a struggling economy, business owners look for new ways to reduce their expenses to save money and resources in order to remain competitive. Could managed printing services offer financial and time savings for a small business?

Small business owners are in a good position to save money and benefit most through managed printing services, since they have a lower profit margin compared to their overhead expenses than larger businesses do. When a printer isn't working effectively in a small business environment, one of the owners, managers or employees must spend time on the phone with an IT specialist trying to troubleshoot the cause of the printer or copier malfunction; as well as find a solution to get it up and running again. When this person is tied up for a long period of time, the business loses the money that would have been made during that time period.

What is Managed Printing Services?Managed Print

Managed Print Service providers (MPS) monitor your printers and copiers actively from a remote location. They can predict where problems may occur and often prevent it from happening. They work with small businesses to implement plans to identify excessive spending in printers, copiers, and supplies, and to increase productivity by setting up a plan for which type of documents go to which printers in your organization.

Managed printing service providers will also make sure you always have the right amount of ink and paper supplies on hand, which means you will no longer have a closet full of supplies that are never used or run out of the paper you need in the middle of a printing project.

Advantages of Managed Printing Services

In addition to the financial savings gained by small business owners utilizing managed printing services, there are additional advantages of convenience and control. As a small business owner, your time is spent operating and managing the daily activities of your business – there is a good chance that you are unaware how much time and money is wasted on printer or copier related activities. Activities like troubleshooting printers that aren't working properly; using double the amount of paper necessary because you haven't learned to use the “print on both sides” option of the printers; and the time spent ordering and processing purchase orders and invoices for toner and paper supplies.

If you upgrade to more efficient and productive printers and copiers, you can also factor in energy efficiency costs of the newer equipment compared to your current, older equipment, and see the cost savings skyrocket.

When you have an MPS provider handling your printing and copying needs, you won't lose one of your key employees (or yourself!) hours on the phone trying to troubleshoot problems – this is most likely your biggest area of savings in both financial resources and time.

The convenience associated with having an expert handling your business printer and copier needs also means no one on your staff needs to worry about ordering supplies. If there are equipment problems or malfunctions, an expert will fix them for you because it is the responsibility of a managed print services provider.

Cost will be inevitably cut with all of those changes listed above when you let the experts handle these things for you. The end result will be an efficient office when you cut expenses on paper, ink or toner, lower your electricity use and improve employee productivity.

You can reduce your overhead expenses with a managed printing services provider, as well as take back some of your time resources and increase productivity.

 

 

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Comments  

 
+1 #2 MPS Consultant 2012-02-27 15:04
Next, don't be too attached to your personal printer. Consumer grade printers (most of what you find in office stores or electronics stores) have the highest cost per page compared to corporate class devices. While the purchase price for a corporate class device seems initially high, the TCO for the device will end up being lower in the long haul. To answer the concerns about secure printing (HR or sensitive financial/company business) nearly all Multifunction Devices on the market have some sort of built-in secure printing technology that will hold the print job until a pin code is punched in. This addresses common justifications for personal printing. By consolidating printing to a couple larger devices, your business will not only save on overall printing, but will also save on electricity, paper waste, expired toner/ink, etc.
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+1 #1 MPS Consultant 2012-02-27 14:56
As a Managed Print Professional, I can share common misconceptions regarding the 'needs' of a business when it comes to business printing.

For starters, it is a generally accepted practice to purchase a large device with 11x17 capability. The reality is, less than 1% of office print is performed on 11x17 paper. In your review of devices to look at, consider how many cases of 11x17 paper you have purchased over the past year and review if you truly need to spend up to 30% more for the 11x17 based device over the letter/legal sized device.

The next misconception is speed of machine. Rather than looking at the features/specifications, consider what the printer is rated to print monthly. Most environments I walk into have the print capacity of large data centers and only use less than 20% of the print capacity they have.
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