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The Print Assessment
The First Step to Saving Money on Your Printing Costs
It’s interesting to know most companies don’t know how many printers or copiers they have. Ask yourself that question, can you answer it? If not maybe its time to get a grip on your total printing devices and their costs.
It’s interesting to note that most companies have the basic understanding of the cost associated with their copiers. When it’s time to replace the copier it only takes a few questions to see the person your working with eyes glaze over as they have difficulty answering questions about printing in your business. The copier is only one of many print devices in a business, but it’s the most sought after for office equipment companies to replace. Interestingly enough the highest cost to a company is the desktop printers! Printers do have their place just not in every office. Managed Print Services is a strategy to conduct a thorough print assessment and streamline your businesses printing output.
The print assessment is the first step and most important to:
- Understand how much you currently spend to print documents
- Make sure your meeting the businesses needs based on over (or under) spending
- Have the correct tools (devices) to actually get the job done
WHAT DO YOU (REALLY) NEED?
Nearly all the companies we’ve dealt with have a closet full of toner and supplies for equipment they no longer use or even have. That’s wasted money!
A print assessment will identify your real print needs and volumes then provide a recommendation for the mix of copier and printers that will meet your needs.
Here are some of the things we look for when assessing your environment.
- How many devices do you have
- How old are the printers or copiers
- What toners do you use and how much are you spending for them
- How many prints are being made on the printer daily or monthly
- Do you own the printing devices in your office
- Do you need to print checks
- Who is printing secure information and is there a need for secure releasing technology
- How much power is being consumed
- What other preventive maintenance is needed on the device and cost (PM’s)
- Are the printers in their optimum location
HOW DO WE DO THIS?
There are many ways to accomplish getting the information needed for the print assessment. The most popular is connecting a data collection agent on your network which tracks page counts only on the device, the information on the prints can’t be seen. This software can see all of your output devices on the network including printers, copiers, and multifunction devices. This information is used by our analyst to verify printing trends.
If security is a concern then our analyst will walk through your business retrieving printer information and recording locations. Once that is complete, they will repeat the data collection a second time to get all the printer end page counts. The walk through allows the analyst to see what devices are on the network and also to ask end-users about their printing habits.
THE RESULT
Once all the information is gathered then there can be an educated discussion and plan of action based on the report:
- How many prints each device is printing
- The cost per print for each device is included based on toner and maintenance cycles
- Recommendation are discussed to replace, reduce or relocate printing devices based on print volumes, cost saving and employee efficiencies.
This result allows you to make better business decisions and provide for more efficiencies within your business based on reliable data, not just a guess. Based on the results, your analyst will work with you to create a plan including the newest technology of hardware, software and workflows that will reduce cost and increase your offices efficiencies.
- A Managed Print Services assessment will create the ideal mix of equipment that could include all new equipment or a mix of new with your existing equipment.
- Software could be used to help assist with better flow of documents through your business providing for more efficiencies with your company’s team members. Digital copiers and printers are key pieces of your business’ IT infrastructure. Don’t ignore them. The right mix of devices and workflow processes will give your business a productive boost and a better bottom line. A true Managed Print Services agreement allows your office equipment provider to do what they do best and is one less thing for you or your IT department to worry about.
So, do you know how many printer and copiers are in your business? What are they costing you?
