| Documents are critical to the operation of almost all enterprises. Printing is a common activity that spans the enterprise from general-purpose activities to specific workflow applications such as medical or employment record processing. Printing is conducted on the desktop in the general office and in internal print centers (e.g. in-plant print shops, small copy/print sites, data center print centers) and it is also purchased externally from a wide range of pay-for-print providers. Printing activities that take place within the enterprise are ultimately part of the computing infrastructure, as printing and copying devices are network-connected within every corporate environment. Companies spend significant amounts of money on print and print-related activities. In fact, InfoTrends’ market research indicates that the total cost of general office printing and related activities accounts for about 2% of revenues or funding, and that total print costs, from the desktop to external print, average 6% of revenues. At the same time, print and printing technology is often treated as an afterthought—something that is handled on an ad-hoc basis—but this is changing. As a result of the high cost of printing and recent technological advances, organizations are revisiting their printing practices to find ways to manage them more efficiently, provide higher levels of satisfaction to users, communicate more effectively, and become more cost-effective.
Obtaining a better understanding of the cost of internal and external printing and related activities such as scanning, copying, and faxing is difficult because printing has historically been handled in a fragmented manner. As a result, most companies do not completely understand how much they are actually spending on printing. Print costs can encompass more than just the spending on equipment, services, and supplies that appears on monthly billing statements. Help desks are burdened with support calls related to printing issues, and other IT resources are needed to support the print infrastructure. Poorly distributed devices, driver issues, downtime, and a lack of common user interfaces have a negative impact on user productivity. In addition, procurement departments are inundated with numerous contracts, invoices, leases, and other related documentation from multiple vendors.
As organizations have begun to digitize various business processes, thereby reducing the costs associated with those processes, printing has become an area of focus. As part of this attempt at gaining higher efficiency while cutting costs, organizations should optimize and continuously manage their printer fleets across the enterprise. To that end, the goals of many constituents in the organization—IT, procurement, and facilities—are very similar: reduce costs, provide better visibility into spend, enhance user productivity and workflow, and ultimately integrate all enterprise document processes for improved business results.
We will examine the various practices that provide effective print management when combined. The primary area of focus for this paper is the general office, but this document also touches on opportunities outside of that environment. |
