To help regain control of a business’ printing costs, Managed Print Services (MPS) can help a business, no matter how big or small, optimize its printer fleet and save money.
MPS involves outsourcing the management of your document output and the devices that handle this responsibility: the copiers, printers, and other document-handling equipment your organization relies on daily to a service provider. These service providers are specialized in all things related to printing, and when you take advantage of their knowledge and skills, you gain access to ample benefits.
There are numerous ways Managed Print Services can help a business. Primarily, it can save you money, improve efficiency in the workplace and add to your digital security. In greater detail, each of these benefits can do worlds of good for just about any business.
Reduce Expenses with Managed Print Services
Perhaps the most compelling reason to consider Managed Print Services is to take advantage of cost savings. Your service provider will supply ample means to cut costs and improve your bottom line.
Firstly, you can expect to lower paper waste. Your service provider will monitor your business’ paper usage to optimize it, and as a result, your overall printing costs will typically go down, saving you time and money.
MPS also helps you reduce the number of printers you have on-site, freeing up some much-needed office space. Managed Print Services gives you access to top-of-the-line equipment that you don’t have to purchase outright. By making more powerful equipment affordable, you can easily reduce the number of stations, which again lowers overall cost.
Even though all of this is optimizing and managing is directed through your service provider, doing more with less saves your business money while also increasing productivity.
That’s still only the beginning. While you’re saving money on equipment, you can also lower labor costs. Since a professional service provider handles all of your printing equipment, you no longer have to pay IT to take care of printers. Their workload is reduced, and you get to save money on that labor cost. You will also save money on labor with a more efficient workflow. Efficiency gains are covered in more detail below, but you can expect to save money on labor any time you can improve workflow.
Perhaps the best way that Managed Print Services saves you money is through digitization. Your service provider will go over digitization strategies with you. When you find an efficient route, increasing digitization makes it easier to store, find, copy and share any and every file your business manages. It boosts productivity and once again lowers labor costs.
Boost Efficiency with MPS
With Managed Print Services, you are offloading printing costs to a third party. Sure, you pay a contract, but when looking at the big picture, the service provider is incentivized to optimize printing processes to boost their own profits. Your service provider can justify investing in analytical tools and resources because they will benefit more from it than you probably would, which increases their efficiency — which also means a boost to your efficiency.
The easiest way to see this is by considering audits and analytics. Most Managed Print Services providers will start with an audit and set up baseline analytics. They will go through your printing processes to find every inefficiency they can. From there, they will propose a setup that clears those efficiency issues, and you’ll be saving time and money right off the bat.
Another way service providers and MPS will help boost efficiency is through equipment management. Routine upgrades help to prevent printer downtime and give you access to the latest tools and resources. This all comes with no additional cost. Instead, it keeps your office equipment up to date and functioning at its best.
Increase Security with Managed Print Services
Printed media is simultaneously more and less secure than purely digital media. It’s a fun paradox, but you can boost security on several fronts if you leverage your printing resources correctly. As you might imagine, Managed Print Services can help you do exactly that.
First, having sufficient physical copy backups can help you protect against cyber threats. A paper document can never be hacked remotely, unlike digital documents. Arguably more important is the fact that physical copy backups can help your business stay functional in the case of ransomware or another attack.
Managed Print Services also helps by improving security within the domain of printing. Printers and related equipment can be sources of vulnerability. They connect to the internet, and it’s easy to overlook them as an access point for malicious activity. Managed Print Services providers will not overlook this aspect of printing because it’s a core component of their day-to-day work. Regular updates and security audits are part of the package and prevent your printers from becoming unduly vulnerable.
Lastly, Managed Print Services is a way to access staff training. The service providers can go over best practices with your staff to reduce risky behavior that might otherwise leave your business vulnerable.
It’s easy to see the potential when you invest in Managed Print Services. Everyone wants to save time and money, and digital security is nothing to take lightly.
If your San Francisco Bay Area-based business is thinking about MPS, contact Golden Gate Office Solutions today and talk to one of our experts.
