How Managed Print Services (MPS) drives Revenue

From small companies to the world’s largest corporations, Managed Print Services or MPS has become the smart way to deliver and manage printing and related services.

One of the most important things a business stakeholder can do is to consistently review finances. In our tech-savvy world, it’s easy to “set it and forget it.” But the problem with this approach is that unnecessary expenses can add up without you even realizing it.

And one area where business stakeholders can be racking up major expenses, without even realizing it, is with their printing solutions.

Let’s begin with a set of questions that you may ask yourself:

That last question is an important factor to take into consideration.

Because while you can look at invoices and add up the cost of toner, ink and paper, it’s much harder to calculate the cost of employee downtime as a result of a printer that’s down.

A recent Bell and Howard report discovered that the majority of downtime incidents lasted two to six hours, and this was considered a low estimate. 13.04% reported more than 12 hours of downtime. This can have a drastic impact on operations. 54.17% of their respondents said they had had more than three incidents of downtime in the past 12 months.

Is your head spinning yet at the potential costs adding up? That’s why Managed Print Services, otherwise known as MPS, can be a godsend for business stakeholders.

The Managed Print Services (MPS) definition is broad, but the end result is simple – gaining visibility and control of your printing, which helps you cut costs and boost productivity. MPS also helps you free up office real estate and improve document security.

Managed print services (MPS) refers to services that help optimize and manage document output for businesses. This includes printers, copy machines, scanners, and fax machines. MPS is handled by a third-party provider to remove the burden of management from you and your staff and increase business efficiency.

But what does it actually mean? In the old way of doing things, firms buy a range of printers, scanners and photocopiers for the different departments within the business. The internal IT team is responsible for maintaining that hardware, while providing ink and toner and ensuring any software works effectively and securely. In the meantime, IT managers and decision makers do their best to match the printer fleet to business requirements, while providing scanning and document management capabilities to minimise paperwork and drive costs down.

MPS takes a different approach, delivering printing, scanning and copying capabilities not through a set of products, but as a complete service. The deployment and management of all the hardware is outsourced to a single company, the MPS provider, who also handles consumables and maintenance plus a print and document strategy, advice and support. One obvious benefit is that the workload of purchasing, maintaining and updating the firm’s printers shifts from the internal IT team to the external provider, but MPS can also reduce printing costs, save time, transform working practices and boost productivity. In short, it’s a whole bundle of ‘win’ for the business.

In several different ways. Firstly, MPS providers look for ways to rationalise and consolidate your printers, replacing many large, old laser printers or single use devices with a smaller number of newer, better distributed, faster devices or multi-function printers with all the necessary functions built-in. This cuts down the size of your printer fleet without compromising productivity. In fact, productivity improves.

Secondly, MPS providers look for ways to reduce waste, helping firms make more effective use of high-quality draft modes, duplex printing and other features that cut down the amount of ink, toner and paper that the firm uses. Switching to newer printers or from laser to business-grade inkjet printers can also reduce the amount of energy your devices use and the amount you spend on consumables, though one of the strengths of MPS is that you never have to worry about purchasing consumables; printers request replacement ink and toner automatically, with the provider often charging on a transparent cost-per-print basis.

This also adds to the cost-savings. Working with a single vendor means you are not rushing around dealing with different suppliers, and all costs are visible and predictable. There’s no capital expenditure on new printers, just ongoing operating expenditure that’s agreed before a single page is output.

MPS also helps reduce support costs and minimise downtime. Because it’s the provider’s job to maintain your printers and keep them running with a steady stream of supplies, your IT team gets more free time to focus on other projects. And while this might sound like you lose control, the opposite is true. You can decide who can use color, set policies for duplex printing and security, or put settings in place to keep wastage to an absolute minimum. You can monitor exactly what’s being printed and how it’s being printed, then take steps to change that. That’s good news for your environmental impact and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals as well.

Finally, MPS gives businesses a chance to rethink how they use print and manage printed information. It can be a chance to digitize forms and paperwork, archive old documents and change how information flows through the company. It’s not a case of shifting to a paperless office, but to an office where paper is used where it’s most effective – and in the most efficient and productive way.

In many organizations, employees spend an excessive amount of time just dealing with printers; not just waiting for old, slow devices to print, but dealing with malfunctions, changing toner cartridges, adding paper or waiting for someone from IT to fix a problem.

Switching to MPS cuts that wasted time right down, not just because the hardware itself is faster and more efficient, but because the MPS provider is always working in the background to ensure that supplies are in place, regular preventative maintenance is carried out, and the right settings are configured. And because your IT team aren’t involved in every detail, MPS can save their time to boot.

When you start working with an MPS provider they come in and analyze your business, your printers, and your requirements in terms of printing, scanning, copying and faxing. With a good MPS provider this doesn’t mean taking a one-size-fits-all approach or – worse – pushing expensive hardware into every corner of the business. Instead, it takes a balanced approach, looking at where teams need specific capabilities, and then finding the printer or printers that will match those needs.

Yet a really good provider doesn’t just stop there, but looks at ways in which the business could print more efficiently and more securely plus save money. After all, it’s not just a question of the hardware, but of the major print costs hidden in the way people use and misuse printers every day. It’s all about putting the right mix of printers into that particular workplace, then backing them up with appropriate software, policies and services.

MPS providers know all about printing, but they are also experts in scanning and document management. That puts them in a good place to recommend new processes or working practices that can help you reduce waste, cut down on paper-based file storage and share information more effectively. They can also help you support printing and scanning from mobile devices or even from outside the office, through the cloud.

MPS can also help the business embrace more flexible working styles, by giving workers the full range of printing and scanning capabilities both when they are inside or outside the office, or allowing users to print to the nearest printer from wherever they are. This all helps a company become more agile – and in today’s markets that’s always a good thing.

At Al Reyami Technologies, we provide comprehensive needs assessment, implementation of hardware and/or software, and an ongoing service and maintenance agreement.

We achieve this and more with a fully-comprehensive plan tailored for your business. We put a heavy emphasis on the beginning phase of every engagement to make sure we do things right the first time and land on the perfect solution for your business.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what we provide:

1. Needs Assessment
   • Data collection on current usage
   • Perform a physical site survey to see and map all equipment
   • Retrieve data, compile all findings, and analyze
   • Submit a comprehensive proposal for improvements and explain the reasoning and benefits of each recommendation
   • Agree on a package and implementation plan including installation and training dates
2. Implementation
   • Install or replace hardware with minimal disruption to your business
   • Facilitate continued employee access to print services during implementation
3. Service and Maintenance
   • Provide access to a dedicated account manager for questions and support
   • Review your equipment performance regularly to continuously look for areas of improvement
   • Renew supplies as needed and perform routine maintenance
   • Troubleshoot and perform repairs as needed

Analysts at IDC have estimated that simply moving from self-managed printers to MPS can save a business 30% of its printing costs, and there’s scope to go further by rethinking how you use print in the business, more closely monitoring your printers and taking more control.

MPS makes printing costs predictable, and can free up office space wasted on bulky printers and copiers so that you have the freedom to put it to more productive use.

It’s good for security, it’s good for productivity and it’s good for the environment. In fact, if you are tired of dealing with paper jams, malfunctions, constant cartridge changes and the like, it might even be good for the overall well-being.

If you are ready to cut costs, free up your IT department’s time and optimize your printing solution, then we would encourage you to contact us today and schedule a complimentary consultation to see what MPS could do for your business. It’s time to regain control of your print environment costs once and for all.

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