Printing operations, to be blunt, are most likely something you don’t want to spend your time or energy worrying about. However, overspending and wastage in your company’s printing could be quite costly to your business.
Did you know that the average business eats up anywhere between 5% and 15% of its annual revenue on document costs?1 Spending money on printing that is not necessary is not only problematic to the environment but is also a waste of your company’s money, resources and, most importantly, time.
Managed print services (MPS) can be a great benefit to businesses and organizations of all sizes. Of course, the bigger your company, the more chances there are of wastage, but quite often, smaller companies can easily fall into bad habits around their print management due to a lack of policies and procedures surrounding them.
The Gartner Group has found that many companies can potentially reduce their printing expenditures by anywhere from 10% to 30%.2 Implementing better print management with a long-term MPS strategy will not only ensure that you are operating efficiently and productively, but help you to reduce operating costs as well.
Introduction to Managed Print Services for IT Teams
An analysis published by Keypoint Intelligence/InfoTrends contains good advice for IT professionals who’ve been pulled into the world of MPS. The analysis, “Managed IT Infrastructure: Managed Print Services,” defines MPS in this way3:
MPS are services-led offerings that help companies solve their pain points typically around costs, management, and/or document processes.
There are four components that are typically concluded in a long-term MPS strategy:
- Hardware
- Supplies
- Services
- Solutions
There are also three engagement tiers or levels when it comes to MPS:
- Supplies and break-fix
- Hardware optimization / print management
- Enhanced MPS
A focus of the report is this third tier – “Enhanced MPS”. Enhanced MPS represents an important shift in the MPS value proposition. It includes the first two levels, but additionally offers advanced solutions for
- Workflow improvements
- Document management
- Security and compliance
- Environmental and sustainability commitments
IT Benefits from Enhanced MPS: Assessments and Reporting
The entire document lifecycle of scan/capture, devices, movement and hybrid digital and print output varies by vertical market, and even from business to business. It’s a complex world, but it can be outsourced with confidence. With MPS, the document environments and devices are optimized, controlled and monitored in real time.
One way enhanced MPS expands the value proposition for IT is through data from assessments and monitoring. This information helps IT teams pursue continuous improvements, particularly around their document processes and output environments. Advanced analytics help IT track the impact of cloud and mobile technologies on their document environments. With an MPS provider to control, optimize, customize and monitor in real-time, IT stays informed but not in constant demand.
Document Management and Workflow Overlap with Other IT Systems
The entire document lifecycle of scan/capture, creation, sharing and movement can be seen as a single environment, but it doesn’t operate in isolation. The documents are intimate parts of any business. They deliver customer service and experience, and this is reason enough to consider enhanced MPS.
IT gets involved in MPS when it overlaps other business initiatives like environmental sustainability, document security and workflow improvement. The lines between MPS, business process and workflow management and automation have blurred, according to the InfoTrends analysis. Implementing and managing comprehensive document services involves working with a variety of business technologies, but this is a way of life in IT. In addition, businesses generally prefer to limit the amount of professional and managed services vendors utilized within their organization. Any opportunity to confidently consolidate services with the MPS umbrella makes sense.
