Achieving Cost Efficiencies with Next-
Generation Printer Management
By Brian Anderson
IT asset management is gaining prominence in many organizations because of its ability to reduce operational and capital expenditures. Despite the rapid growth in IT asset management, however, few companies have paid much attention to managing the printers and copiers deployed in their organization.
According to Gartner, printers and copiers can cost businesses from 1 to 3 percent of total revenue. Yet in most organizations, printing has become a "black hole" of escalating costs with little or no management or accountability. This is largely because the responsibility for managing printers and copiers has fallen to a mix of backgrounds across both IT and non-IT personnel. In addition, until now, there have been few technology choices available for managing printer assets. This situation has led to over-resourced printer and copier investments as well as poor printer and copier performance. The ultimate result has been excessive costs and high consumer frustration.
Although it is one of the most overlooked areas in the IT asset management field, print management is an area that can yield strong short-term gains. This article will describe IT asset management for printers and copiers, compare the various options available and describe the benefits of a proactive approach to managing printer assets.
Options for printer asset management
Companies have two options for better managing their printer resources: outsource printer management to a print vendor or managed service company, or install specialized software to manage the process.
With expanded technology options for managing printer assets, newly available print management software has several advantages over using service providers or print vendors. Print management software provides an independent audit of all costs associated with printing, as well more data about device performance and use. When printer management is turned over to outsourcers, companies lose their agility to control cost or improve service performance. In addition, service providers and print vendors can provide cost information, but cannot provide an independent audit trail. Service providers will send a bill at the end of the month identifying costs, but there is not way to determine whether the costs are correct.
Key requirements for print management software
There are several essential features to look for when purchasing asset management software for printers. The software should include the following capabilities:
Capacity planning - the ability to determine whether print resources are overdeployed or underdeployed. As a sample benchmark, network printers should generally service five to eight employees.
Service management - the ability to track response time and resolution time for any incident. For example, determining when a printer goes down and when it gets fixed. Service management should include proactive notification capability, so an IT manager can be notified of a problem rather than have a user reporting it. This feature helps reduce the number and duration of help desk calls.
Vendor management - the ability to manage how many printers are installed, as well as volume commitments for copiers. The ultimate goal here is to streamline the number of vendors a company works with--ideally one vendor for copiers and one for printers.
Supplies management - the ability to manage when to buy supplies and what kind of supplies to buy. This feature will allow IT managers to direct print flow to the device with the lowest cost-per-page.
In addition to these capabilities, the printer resource management software must be able to work with printers from all vendors used within the organization.
Benefits of print management
Once installed, printer asset management software yields many substantial benefits. Most importantly, companies can cut print costs by 30 percent per year by managing printer capacity, and reducing operating costs, warranty costs and help desk costs. In addition, organizations can improve response time to fix printer problems, enhancing user satisfaction and enabling higher productivity.
For example, a leading hospital network in Michigan with 2,000 printers and 138 different printer models enjoyed dramatic benefits from deploying a software solution for printer asset management. After investing $60,000 in software and services, the hospital saved $250,000 annually because of better printer utilization and redeployment, $100,000 in help desk costs, $50,000 in print penalty avoidance, and $100,000 in other areas for total annual savings of $500,000. ENS
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