Managed Print: The Way to Save Some Extra Cash
No matter what type of business you’re in or products you sell, generating a consistent stream of revenue and ensuring document security are two major objectives for any sized business to stay afloat. However, a lot of businesses- especially small businesses- fail to adopt a plan for tracking multifunction printer usage, maintenance and recovery costs. What is even worse, is that many businesses don’t even take the most basic precautions to protecting and securing files across their organization. When that happens the business is practically throwing money out the window while leaving the organization open to security breaches and threats.
*Last updated 1/9/18*
When it comes to protecting files across an organization, the best thing to do is implement a managed print solution.Managed print services help companies gain control of their print environment based on individual users to reduce costs and increase productivity and document security. Costs associated with printing can add up to between 1-10% of your total revenue. A managed print solution only charges for the prints you use on the equipment you need; which is great because then you can identify who’s printing too much color, who’s printing single sided vs. saving paper by duplexing, or who is printing to expensive desktop printers when they could be using the office one. All of this data can be used for departmental bill-back or client billing. Putting a print strategy in place that effectively monitors and manages your fleet of equipment can provide your organization with cost savings of up to 30%.
Another common attribute of a print management solution is to apply rules based printing. Rules based printing sets up guidelines for prints to print in the cheapest way possible such as; prints in black-and-white instead of color, any document over 3 pages will automatically duplex and print jobs will be sent to the printer that best fits the documents needs. Managed print is commonly used across many different types of businesses when they would like to know exactly who is doing what for everything listed above- plus more.
Keeping documents secure is one of the most important components to a managed print system. That means not leaving documents or data in any form, open to prying eyes and the unauthorized use and distribution of personal information. While this is critical to every business in all verticals, it is imperative to the healthcare, education and legal fields as they must adhere to strict compliance laws and regulations.
With that being said, let’s consider the landscape of cost recovery in some of the major vertical markets.
Healthcare: With HITECH and HIPAA compliance regulations becoming a very harsh reality, healthcare facilities would benefit from print management solutions. An important precedent in the healthcare area is the need to coincide with existing electronic health record (EHR) systems. Managed print can integrate a scanning card reader authentication for secure pull printing and tracking. With all of these solution intertwined, they would provide a healthcare facility with a strong cost savings program.
Legal: Managed print is imperative to the legal sector because time is money in the legal industry. The majority of the legal market charge back to their clients comes from a variety of document services provided to them in order to have everything prepared for the case. Managed print services can provide automated workflow solutions, routing to main destination points and integrating with popular document management programs such as; Worldox, iManage, Open Text and NetDocuments – all of which provide incredible value to legal departments. Client billing, integrated scanning and print attributes using proximity cards are other features that the legal sector can benefit from implementing a managed print program.
Education: According to Reference, the average school of 100 teachers uses approximately 250,000 pieces of paper per physical year. That means the average school is spending $25,000 on paper each year, and that doesn't even include the maintenance and replacing the toner and ink that add to the printing costs. K-12 and higher education have incredibly contrasting environments when it comes to cost recovery. K-12 tends to be more centralized and can utilize solutions such as “Follow You” for secure printing. A print management program for K-12 has the ability to monitor staff printing by faculty, department and by year level. This allows the billing department to be able to see what department or grade level is using the printer the most. Higher education requires all of this as well as campus card authentication with integration using student billing systems such as CBOARD and Blackboard, which all use the same card for student activities. Every student has their own identification card, and when integrated with a managed print program the student only pays for the prints they specifically print out. All schools, no matter what grade level, must comply with the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) so security functions of a cost recovery solution, can greatly help with adherence.
Implementing a managed print program provides the flexibility to let users print what they need when they need it without disrupting workflow and reduce costs and complexities of a print infrastructure, all while adding an additional layer of security to help comply with regulations set forth in all verticals. Our print management solutions are designed specifically for you and the needs of your business. Hilliard Office Solutions can provide the print management solution that can surpass your needs.