How Can A Managed Print Services Program Continue To Identify And Lower Costs?

We all know that good decisions are based on good information; with MPS, this is certainly true and becomes more meaningful over time. With an outsourced approach to print management MPS), the need for meaningful data on an on-going basis is key to strategically managing print as a business process. Real‐time data allows a Service Provider to proactively manage their customer needs, improve service levels, and improve productivity, all while lowering costs.

A managed Print Solution doesn’t end with the implementation of a new solution; on the contrary, that’s where it begins. Rather than just tracking historical maintenance events, being able to make prioritized decisions for allocating limited resources based on more complete information is critical to the process. Without a clear understanding of cost structures, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to accurately prioritize, define, and manage a print environment; including service and support requirements. With available data, a Service Provider can identify areas for greater scrutiny and delve into underlying drivers in pursuing continuous improvement. Furthermore, data transparency enables heightened scrutiny and audit capabilities, both for the Service Provider and the customer, which inherently demands over‐sight and review.

Managing resources strategically, based on analysis of historical data, allows a Service Provider to improve their call‐to‐tech ratio, lowering transportation and resource costs; improve consumable replacement time‐lines, reducing delivery, inventory carrying, and acquisition costs; and many other process improvements. Historical data enables you to know the lifetime support costs of a print device so you can make comparative, strategic decisions about repair, replace, or run‐to‐failure for different equipment.

Repair history and historical maintenance costs, for example, can be used to project future budget requirements and determine Total Cost of Ownership and Operation. It is estimated that 30‐50 percent of print devices in office environments are underutilized, while 20‐30 percent are over utilized. Low device utilization means you are receiving a low return on assets. Excessively high utilization may impede productivity and waste valuable employee time.

Historical data on individual print device utilization rates allows a Service Provider to optimize a print environment, improving utilization ratios, which delivers better performance at a lower cost, increases productivity, and avoids the costs of unnecessarily replacing and acquiring new equipment.

Companies must recognize the need to manage assets from a strategic perspective across the entire organization, rather than purely from a maintenance perspective. This is what MPS is all about. Companies often see print devices as individual, stand‐alone objects operating in the background, when, in reality, they are a collection of inter‐dependent assets that should be managed as a unified enterprise. By doing so, decisions are no longer made ad hoc, but are made based on real data, aggregated, and analyzed.

Utilization rates, equipment, and print environments change. Long‐term cost savings come from being able to make wise decisions both before and after the change; being able to reconfigure a print environment, and see the impact of those changes immediately; being able to predict service needs and address them before they have a negative financial impact on your cost structure; being able to track changes by equipment or cost center in performance and costs, and drill down into several layers of data for an explanation; cost savings come from proactively, consistently, and aggressively managing a print environment.