Is Your Printing Costing You More Than It Should?

Every business owner wants to cut down unnecessary expenses but identifying where money is being wasted is the first step to stopping the money bleed. The printers used daily in your business alongside related supplies account for a significant portion of money spent. While you may not be thinking about how much ink is being bought or how much of your IT staff’s time is being eaten up by support calls related to paper jams, these neglected details add up to a lot and can be costing you much more than is necessary.

Is your printing environment costing your business more than it should? Read on to find out.

The Culprit: Decentralized Printing Supplies

You want what you need when you need it – that includes ink and toner – especially when you’re off to a meeting and need hard copies to hand out. Having stock on hand to supply your printers so that it can do its job is imperative. It matters to your employees that they have the materials necessary to do their job and it matters to your printer so that it can do what your employees need.

Unfortunately, many organizations order printing supplies on an ad-hoc basis, which means there is no centre of command overseeing expenditures and in turn no control over costs. When different departments are ordering supplies, costs can spiral out of control with ink and toner cartridges being purchased incorrectly, excessively, or bought and forgotten about sitting on a shelf somewhere unused.

Fix it: Centralize and standardize your supplies for transparency when it comes to cost as well as better inventory management.

The Culprit: Cheap Printer = High Supply Costs

Sometimes a department or individual in your organization will come up with what they think is a brilliant idea to help productivity and workflows by purchasing an additional printer at a reduced cost. However, this initially cheap purchase can end up costing a lot in the long run with expensive long term costs for maintenance and supplies that are unnecessary. Cheap printers often come with high cartridge replacement costs. Pair this with underuse of the device by employees and then replicate the scenario across departments and you see how the “brilliant idea” actually is a dumb and costly decision.

Fix it: Standardize your printer environment, as well as centralize decisions for greater oversight and lower costs.

The Culprit: Unnecessary Colour Prints

Vivid colours are awesome; they add a touch of life to any print document – there’s no denying it. But the fact of the matter is, colour prints are unnecessary when they’re not being used for a presentation or sales pitch that contains colour coded graphs or images. Not everything needs to be printed in colour and when your print environment is uncontrolled or unmonitored, colour printing can get out of hand.

Fix it: Put a printing policy in place and grant permissions accordingly so that those who need to print in colour can and those that don’t, can’t.

The Culprit: IT Resources Used Up by Support Calls

Print related support calls are a bummer than eat up your IT resources valuable time. Whether it’s on demand printer supplies or printer troubles that are the source of these calls, the cost of finding answers adds up in time wasted. By creating a system that explains print processes and solutions, your organization can free up your IT’s time for pertinent matters.

Fix it: By updating your printer fleet and standardizing your machines, you can simplify processes, reduce the number of support calls, and create more efficient solutions.

The Culprit: Uncollected Print Jobs

It’s easy to hit “print” and forget about grabbing your document. The fact is, we’re distracted beings these days connected to our smartphones and desktops with multiple tasks to complete. It’s no wonder that printed docs get left behind and are never collected. However, this results in wasted paper, toner, and effort for the person who has to throw out the doc.

Fix it: By introducing a secure document release through a PIN or swipe card entry, documents that need to be printed, get printed, and remain secure while those that are not necessary – never get printed and don’t waste resources.

The Culprit: Trusting Your Print Environment to Yourself

Now that may sound harsh but unless you’re in the business of managed print services chances are you don’t specialize in managing print environments. The amount of time, effort and resources you commit to managing your print environment can be saved drastically when you outsource your print management to the right people.

Managed print service providers provide you with a single source for your business printing needs. They ensure that your network is setup for optimal success and cost reduction, as well as provide supplies and solutions, and manage vendors accordingly. They can even free up your IT’s time as they maintain the life of your machinery and are there to make sure things are in working order.

Fix it: Find a Managed Print Services provider who can assess your current print environment and help create a plan that works for your business and its anticipated growth.