Submitted by: Andy Jones, Director, Global Document Outsourcing, Xerox Europe
Good news for those looking for further cost savings: getting a handle on print costs is still an untapped opportunity for most businesses to save money and operate more efficiently. A recent report from research firm Quocirca says despite the huge growth in electronic communications and mobile device usage, printed output is still widely used in business.
Louella Fernandes, analyst and author of the Quocirca report says:
“We estimate that only 15 per cent of large enterprises currently use managed print services (MPS) to reduce office printing costs, and most aren’t controlling and managing printed output wherever it is produced – in the office, at a remote location, in the print room or in commercial print shops. This represents a huge unnecessary cost, but also an area for easy potential savings for large businesses that have complete print transparency.”
To help get to grips with MPS I’ve outlined a few of Quocirca’s top tips for organisations considering MPS:
- Ensure your provider has a level of maturity: select a provider with experience of delivering office MPS, print room services and external procurement. They need the agility to respond to changing business dynamics and expertise to deliver services on a global scale, including technology depth and local experience to facilitate global transactions
- Conduct a detailed evaluation: go beyond analysing print volumes to understanding what type of documents are being printed, where and by whom. This ensures that effective transformation programmes can be implemented, predicted cost savings are realistic and the need for document workflow solutions can be assessed, based on existing business processes.
- Think beyond cost per page: an enterprise-wide print strategy should avoid simply focusing on reducing acquisition costs and cost per page. Implement a flexible and sustainable print strategy that delivers ongoing cost savings through a standardised technology platform and optimised business workflows.
All too often printing is managed in silos across the business by different stakeholders, with separate budgets. By taking control of the print environment, businesses can look to save costs, operate more efficiently and ensure document security.
So, the good news is there are still cost savings to be made. Even better news is that Xerox can help. We were first to offer Enterprise Print Services (EPS) to embrace all elements of an organisation’s print infrastructure – from the networked office to the in-house print centre to the virtual worker. And because if this, we lead the market – Xerox was positioned by Gartner, Inc., in the Leaders Quadrant in the “Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services Worldwide”[1] for 2009 and recognised as a leader in IDC’s 2010 MPS MarketScape report[2].
— Andy Jones, Director, Global Document Outsourcing, Xerox Europe
1Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services Worldwide” by K. Weilerstein, et al. August 21, 2009.
2 IDC “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Managed Print Services 2010 Hardcopy Vendor Analysis.” Doc # 222872, April 2010.
