The Cat Is Out of the Bag - Printing Cost is an Issue
September 6, 2010
PrintSend to a FriendTweet this AnalysisAnalysis by: Edward Crowley
Analysis of: Ruses to cut printing costs
Published at: www.economist.com
Summary
For years, imaging products (copiers, printers, and faxes) have had the opportunity to create significant costs in every company with little or no oversight. The proliferation of uncontrolled printing and imaging has created an out of control expense.
This is all changing as CIO's and even the mainstream business press are highlighting printing costs as a real corporate issue. In this article, the Economist, highlights this issue and identifies managed print services as one solution.
Analysis
Exploding printing and copying costs are a significant issue for today's businesses. As the following quote from a recent Economist Magazine article shows, workers continue to produce a huge amount of paper. And much of this printing is 'unneeded':
"True, paper consumption in American offices peaked in 2001, but since then it has declined only slightly from its high of around 150 pounds (68kg) of paper per worker per year. In Europe, meanwhile, each worker prints an average of 31 pages a day, seven of which were not even wanted, according to recent research by Lexmark, a printer manufacturer."
Printing costs has not been a focus area for the corporate world until relatively recently. As the economic crisis hit in 2010, CFO's began to look at this 'hidden' source of cost savings as a way to bring an immediate impact to the bottom line. Now the Genie is out of the bag. Executives are hearing about huge cost savings achieved through managed print service engagements in companies such as Dow Chemical. Dow saved over $27M over three years with their managed print services program. This was documented in a case study in the MPS Insights Journal, a professional journal for the managed print services industry (you can see the case study at the MPS Insights site).
During a recent fact finding tour in India and during our recent managed print services conference in Asia I met with executives from around Asia and the Middle East who were describing the increasing corporate awareness and demand for managed print services. In fact, the soon to be released Managed Print Services Market Size, Share, and Forecast report from the Photizo Group shows a compound growth rate in excess of 25% a year, resulting in a market size of over $60B by 2014.
Printing costs are now an issue. And managed print services is seen as one of the key issues. Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Lexmark, and a number of other industry players are staking their future on the success of their transition from a 'product centric' to a services centric business model. IBM Global Services made this transition during the 90's, although it was a painful, and difficult transition driven by a 'near death' experience. The question is, can the existing set of imaging vendors make this transition? Or will a new set of vendors led by Managed Service Providers such as Buchanan Technologies be the real winners?
http://www.glgroup.com/News/Th...-an-Issue-50414.html
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