Businesses are continually looking for ways to lower operating costs, introduce proven technologies that speed up access to information, and increase growth and profitability. The are many important questions when it comes to the print and document related processes of your business or organization. For example, are you aware of the amount of avoidable printing that occurs in your business? How much time is spent by you or your staff managing and maintaining your printer fleet? And how much is all this effecting your bottom line? Understanding the opportunities to reduce your printing costs and creating a well-managed print environment can lead to significant cost saving and increased productivity for your business.
THE RIGHT PRINTER
Many people believe that desktop printers are the best (and perhaps only) option for a business’s printing needs, but compared to commercial printers, desktop printers will be more expensive for the business in the long term. Many commercial printers may offer services that are cheaper, even at small quantities. In addition, the effective use of shared, networked printers can significantly increase your print productivity. In most cases, a multifunctional printer could take the place of multiple laser printers.
THINK TWICE, DON’T PRINT TWICE
The simple act of making your employees aware of the impact of their printing will get them thinking about ways to conserve and improve their printing efficiency. If you start tracking printing and produce reports for each individual in your company, you can let them know how much money they are spending on printing. This knowledge and insight may make them think before they print, which will lead to cost savings in the long term. Also, with a virtual print queue to hold documents until they are ready to be picked up, the employee has the option to cancel the documents if a) they pressed print and wanted to make changes, or b) pressed print twice.
USE DUPLEX PRINTING
Many printers allow you to select ‘duplex printing‘, where you can print on both sides of the page. This is a great feature for saving paper. You might be using the same amount of ink as you would normally, but you are wasting 50% less paper, which is more environmentally friendly and will save you on paper costs.
CUT COLOUR
The use of colour adds impact to presentations, but it doesn’t need to be a part of everything you print. You can automatically route colour jobs to a lower-cost colour printer, or set all of your printing jobs to grayscale (no colour) as the default option. Many large copy machines or larger laser printers will cost you more per page if colour (even a small portion) is being incorporated. So while colour printing looks great, wasted colour printing is not great for improving your bottom line.
DIGITAL PRINTOUTS
In many cases documents are only needed as digital printouts on a tablet or smartphone for reading (e.g. transport tickets, email attachments). Introducing the option to digitally print documents reduces waste and cost, and is also environmentally friendly. Also, email more and print less. If you want to show a colleague something, email it to them as an attachment instead of printing it out.
OPTIMIZE YOUR PRINTER FLEET
To achieve an optimized printer fleet, carry out a comprehensive review of printer usage needs within your business, including printing behaviour, volumes and wastage. Analyze your current printing workflow and suggest changes to help boost your organizational efficiency. The solution may be replacing or resizing your fleet, outsourcing printing requirements, or realigning your employees’ printing usage patterns. Whatever it is, your optimal solution will depend on the unique printing requirements of your business.
PRINT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
Print management is the concept of combining all printing via copiers, fax machines and traditional printers under a single strategy to manage and optimize their use. A print management strategy will help you manage the printing environment of your business, optimize your infrastructure, and improve workflow processes. You can also outsource your print management to a business solutions company to fulfill all of your printing requirements.
At TOPS we are dedicated to identifying and designing systems that support your operational needs with reliable and scalable business solutions. From telephone systems to printers & copiers and network services, we provide technology hardware, support, and training for your business.
