An organization’s document imaging technologies can put a strain on people’s time while being a drain on the bottom line. This leads to two things businesses never want to hear: low return on investment, high total cost of ownership. And then there’s this:
82% of employees report that some of the printing they do at work is optional, that is, it’s either for personal use nor required by the business process (meaning it could be done digitally). –InfoTrends Research
There’s plenty of hope, however, and it’s closer to your doorstep than you think. And some of the questions that are already forming in your head can probably be answered right here!
Print management puts the user level of printing under the microscope to help reduce costs through software tools such as policies, quotas, job rerouting and pull printing, and offers benefits in the areas of security and environmental sustainability.
Let’s drill into that description a little…
Some Big, Common Challenges and How Print Management Helps
Typically there are a variety of challenges that companies encounter with their print environments—print management has the cure for many of them. Here are some classic examples:
Getting your staff to print more efficiently and affordably. Through limits or outright restrictions, print management software enables companies to put an end to wasteful use of color toner/ink or conserve paper via enforced double-sided printing.
Keeping individual departments within budget. Because employees are accountable for what they produce on printers or MFPs, they’ll potentially curtail file output in favor of scan-and-send capabilities, while print management software can also help in the chargeback of clients.
Preventing sensitive documents from being seen. Pull printing forces users to authenticate at the device in order to print, so resumes, payroll data or other confidential files won’t be left on output trays.
While the end result that print management software delivers—reducing costs associated with your document output—is mission critical, it’s also very much about the journey. Or, more specifically in this case: Via tools and education, changing your employees’ behavior around printing might just be the ultimate benefit because it has the farthest-reaching effects.
Leveraging the Latest Technology for Your Documents
Print management software, like all technology today, is steadily becoming more and more powerful and can be a means to improved administration of mobile printing. Perhaps the most prominent myth about “on the go,” driverless document printing is that it’s for only “on the go” individuals who aren’t frequently in the office. In actuality, however, plenty of people in offices today spend plenty of time in meetings and not at their desk, where mobile printing could become something even bigger than it is today.
46% of people currently print from mobile devices at work, and 83% of them believe their mobile printing will stay the same of increase. –InfoTrends Research
A couple of other features immediately come to mind:
Universal Print Driver admin: UPDs enable organizations to streamline installation by deploying a single driver for one specific brand of equipment (in some situations, one could support another brand or two). For users, this means just one interface to learn for multiple devices.
Cost-recovery crossover: In settings where chargeback is a critical business process, such as in the professional services sector, print management software can be a key player in cost accounting while facilitating a faster billing experience.
Is Print Management Right for You?
Most businesses don’t have a clue how much they spend on printing, which clearly isn’t ideal, and demands around print differ depending on the industry or department. Regardless of what sector your company is in or how it operates on a day-to-day basis, though, you want to achieve maximum savings in every part of your business, including with your document imaging environment.
Here are some typical questions about print management, which could help you determine if you’re a candidate for this class of software:
Is color output allowed for all your employees?
Do you at least encourage double-sided printing?
What’s your policy on printing webpages?
Are there any rules around document output in your office?
Can users print to their heart’s content?
Wouldn’t it be nice to redirect jobs to lower-cost devices?
3 Takeaways
Print management software helps cut document output costs through a variety of tools
Issues ranging from the commonplace to the not so frequent can be solved through print management
Benefits of print management include those in the spaces of security and the environment
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