| There has been a growing trend toward paperless communication for some time across many industries. Email, encrypted messages, Dropbox and even platforms such as Zoom and GoToMeeting with screen sharing capabilities have all helped reduce the amounts of paper used to communicate. Still, there are some companies which remain very paper-intensive – including commercial real estate agencies, construction and property development companies, banks and credit unions.
Within these firms, many companies and institutions spend historically up to 3 percent of their annual revenue on document generation. Three percent may not sound significant, but consider what it means in actual dollars. A company which grosses $5 million in annual sales may be spending $150,000 toward document generation.
There are a number of unintended inefficiencies existing within many organizations and their document generation systems, and there is a program – Managed Print Services (MPS) – which seeks to reduce the overall costs of this process by between 10 percent and 15 percent. Or, put into dollars, that $150,000 expenditure can be reduced by between $15,000 and $22,500.
What is MPS?
Particularly in these COVID-19 times, when financial institutions, commercial real estate agencies or construction/design firms are grappling with how to cut costs without cutting personnel, the advantages of trimming costs can be very appealing.
One inefficiency is having the wrong equipment in service at certain locations throughout a building. As a simple example, having a printer responsible for high–volume document generation, which perhaps came from a “big box” store and had a very appealing price tag, may in fact cost much more to generate copies because of the expensive cartridges required to operate it. The cost per-page with a machine such as this may be astronomical (7, 8 or even 9 cents per page) compared to a higher-priced printer with lower per–page costs (2 or 3 cents).
It doesn’t end there. All too often when the document generation equipment encounters problems, it’s the IT person who gets called in to fix it.
Given the labor rates that skilled IT professionals command, this practice is a bit akin to hiring a heart transplant surgeon to treat a case of poison ivy.
MPS examines per-page cost as the bottom line, as opposed to the final price point of office equipment. Its fundamental premise is evaluation of all costs associated with leasing, owning and using printing and imaging equipment, including maintenance and ongoing support – an element of particular significance for facilities with multiple locations or satellite offices. Print management software tracks the number of prints each piece of equipment uses and produces reports, that help manage for increased efficiencies.
While it may go against the grain of a bank or office purchasing agent to pass by the inexpensive desktop printer for a Managed Print Services approach, it is key to have the right technology for the control and management of usage. But when the cost of replacing cartridges is factored in, that $119 printer can end up costing 8 cents or more per page. And with banks and commercial real estate agencies often incorporating color into the presentations, the importance of keeping costs low stand out even more.
How It Works
An MPS begins with an audit of document generation costs and equipment efficiency.
What does the existing printer fleet look like? What are the costs, and are there any operational bottlenecks. What was the cost of the equipment? What are the costs of the supplies? And how big a portion of IT resources are being used to support printing equipment?
A program of this sort begins with an in-place tracking software program that enables the provider to monitor clients’ systems remotely, alerting them to potential misfeeds or low toner, thereby averting work stoppage.
An MPS program will identify current and anticipated printing requirements, help to consolidate redundancies in printing equipment, reduce or eliminate the need for IT support, eliminate the need for supply inventory and provide significant cost savings.
In addition to cost savings, there’s another great benefit for banks, and private companies. MPS is effective at helping an institution become more “green” in that it reduces waste, encourages paper recycling, as well as the recycling of ink. MPS will lower a facility’s carbon footprint.
We live in a new reality, where we have to examine efficiencies and costs. With many institutions actively seeking humane cost-cutting measures, this is one which both saves money and improves efficiency.
Ray Belanger is president and CEO of Rockland-based Bay Copy.
