Easy Green Printing
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!
Relieve Your IT Department with MPS
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.
Reduce the Costs of Your Print Environment
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.
Going Green Brings Financial Benefits
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.
Utilize Print Management Software for Easy Reporting
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.
Ignite Productivity Through Managed Print Services
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.
Reduce Office Printing Costs in Three Easy Steps
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.
Utilize Access Controls for Reduced Print Costs
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.
Managed Print Services Solutions for Hammond Lubricant Works LLC
Successful Solution
Hammond Lubricant Works’ Administrative Manager needed to identify and control printing expenses,
reduce wasteful purchasing practices, cut long distance fax charges, and correct redundancies
in the company’s printing fleet.Advanced Imaging Solutions rightsized the printing fleet with strategically placed printers and multifunction devices and implemented a Managed Print Services
program.Hammond Lubricant Works now has an organized and transparent supplies program, an
efficient printing fleet and a scheduled maintenance plan.The company realized a 23% monthly
savings in the first quarter of their Managed Print Services program.
Hammond Lubricant Works, located in Hammond, Indiana, is a manufacturer of petroleum-based lubricant products. The company was founded in 2002 and employs approximately 60 people. The business can be very fast paced, especially when the price of crude oil is volatile.
Managed Print Services Case Study
We have all read of companies reinventing themselves. Frequently, the company had a poor strategic p an or simply did not execute well. It is unfortunate hut you do not have to look any further than the large American auto manufactures for a recent example. Some companies have the foresight to change while they are still on top; think of Bill Gates' 1995 manifesto to the employees of Microsoft to redirect their efforts to the internet after a relatively small company, Netscape, jumped to an early lead in what was considered the future of personal computing.
Page After Page is a company that has continually reinvented itself. As a successful and profitable printer cartridge re-charger serving businesses in the greater Boston market, Page After Page has differentiated themselves by providing their large customer base with desktop delivery. This transition to a higher level of service positioned Page After Page favorably when big box retailers started to fill their shelves with compatible cartridges.
