By, Louella Fernandes, principal analyst, Quocirca
With the growth of mobility, BYOD (bring your own device), cloud computing and big data, we’re seeing our digital and paper worlds collide. This means we need better access to information than ever before.
I believe that this year could see managed print services (MPS) help put information at a company’s fingertips. MPS has the potential to drive business transformation by moving beyond printing to business processes and 2013 could be the year we begin to see this happen.
Quocirca research shows that over 50% of large enterprises (over 1000 employees) have now put in place some sort of MPS. So with many now entering their second of even third MPS contracts, businesses are looking for further savings and efficiencies and following are a few ways in which they could find them.
1) Many businesses still rely heavily on paper to support business processes – whether it is finance and accounting or HR. MPS can help intelligently organize information from both paper and electronic sources and make it more readily available to office, mobile and remote workers.
2) One of the most significant ways to increase cost savings and productivity of such business processes is to make the more of multi-functional printers (MFPs). MFP usage is often limited to printing, copying and scanning, yet these devices are sophisticated document processing hubs with the ability to capture, route and archive documents! Documents can be scanned directly into electronic systems – be it an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or ECM (Electronic Content Management) system, or even cloud based systems such as Dropbox or Office 365. As information becomes easier to manage, it’s better able to help boost productivity, cut costs and advance the move to the paperless office.
3) Some MPS providers can provide the full outsourcing of business processes, for example managing invoice processing, HR, finance and accounts and also IT outsourcing. Using a single provider for MPS and BPS offers the potential to deliver further cost-savings, increase productivity and also enable tighter process and financial controls through better regulatory compliance.
For more thoughts on the future of MPS, please do read my report: the Next Frontier of Managed Print Services and let me know what you think. Are you using cloud based systems more? Have you thought about scanning directly to these systems? Will 2013 see you move more towards a paperless office?
Louella is a respected and globally recognized analyst who has a wealth of experience and knowledge from 20 years’ association with the printer industry. Her research and consulting experience includes strategic and competitive analysis of the managed print services (MPS) market and analysis of end-user MPS requirements from small businesses to large enterprises.
