Managed Print Services: The Green Light at the End of the Tunnel

Unless you are coming down with the Swine Flu, the Doc is all for going green, and one way to do that is to get a handle on your printing infrastructure. For a good overview of how Managed Print Services can help you do just that, take a look at an article by Louella Fernandes, a principal analyst at Quocirca. Among other things, Louella says:

"There is no better time for businesses to take control of their print environment. Many print environments still have a tangled mix of old and new equipment, both over and underutilized, leading to high costs due to the variety of consumables (both storage and procurement) as well as the financial and environmental costs associated with paper, ink, toner and energy consumption. Often, management and procurement of the printing infrastructure is distributed across locations and geographies with no centralized tracking system to monitor and analyze costs. An uncontrolled printing environment also poses security risks, not least through confidential material being left on output trays.

"The true cost of unmanaged printing can be a startling discovery for those businesses. The initial cost of the printer represents only small percentage of its lifetime cost, and it is the operating expenses that give a much better measure of the real cost of a printer. This includes taking account of cartridge and consumables costs, help desk and maintenance costs, and loss of productivity resulting from printer downtime. An MPS aim is to reduce the total cost of ownership associated with an unmanaged print environment by assessing the current environment to understand usage and develop a rationalization plan."

And if you are coming down with the Swine Flu, remember, I’m not that kind of Doc!