Printers today are incredibly reliable, but when issues do pop up, very few in-house IT teams have the time or know-how to fix them. However, hiring a person or even a service provider just to support your printers is no longer the ideal solution.
We’re believers that there are a lot of essential functions that can be bundled with printer services, making your company more productive and freeing up your IT staff to do more important tasks. The answer to many of your IT support woes may be bundling support services with one managed technology partner.
Supporting print technology is no longer just a matter of installing hardware and a print management software package for tracking prints and supplies. In a modern office, your printer is connected to the cloud, connecting workflows and remote workers.
According to a recent survey, 1 in 5 technology dollars are now being spent outside the IT department. That means new initiatives are increasingly being driven by marketing and other business functions, not by IT. In this world, IT budgets need to be focused on moving forward, not supporting existing infrastructure.
IT departments today must scramble to deliver technology offerings that work across all departments and all platforms- whether desktop, mobile or cloud-based. And those services need to meet security demands while making sure mobile users can do whatever they need to, from anywhere and at any time.
To begin, a Managed Print Services program is all about integrating the right combination of hardware and software to help save money, time and resources. A print service provider should continually assess your fleet, look for opportunities to consolidate equipment and deploy software to improve document workflows.
An outsourced team of professionals offers specialties in a range of technologies, receives ongoing training and certifications and have the means to go beyond basic monitoring and maintenance of your systems. With a full team of IT experts on your side, you’ll be provided with in-depth support that will create a strategic roadmap to meet business goals and objectives. Most importantly, a print service offers experienced technicians as well as risk analysis, cutting-edge tools and expertise to guard your business against the threat of a cyberattack.
To see what we mean, consider the case of Archery Range and Retailers Organization (ARRO), a national association of professional archery ranges and pro shops. In 2017, the company moved to two new locations in different states. The organization relied on GFC and Elevity to upgrade its office printers and technology while making the move a seamless success.
In addition to new hardware, ARRO uses Microsoft’s Teams, OneDrive and other cloud-based solutions to increase productivity. The company’s shared drives allow staff all to access company files in a secure environment and provides a secure environment to collaborate and share information.
Deploying new printer hardware, servers, shared drives and Virtual Private Network (VPN’s), ARRO’s teams were able to continue working seamlessly even though they were now separated by thousands of miles. “Having GFC manage our IT, computers, email services and web-based applications as well as all of our copier services, we have a team that works hard for us,” said Deb Colgrove, Chief Administrative Officer ARRO.
The key to sustaining savings gained from managing your document environment is to have one team to manage your workflow, from print devices to all your connected services. Documents are created by printers and scanners, shared in online repositories, distributed with document management software tools and protected by one cybersecurity service.
We hope this information is useful. If you have any questions or are interested in a multi-function device and cloud-based management tools, please contact us today or check out our Guide to Managed Print Services.
