As organizations grow, so do their business technology needs – and their printer fleets. We’ve found that as organizations expand across multiple locations, oftentimes they mistakenly keep their business technology equipment separate by location.
This is a missed opportunity for streamlining operations – specifically printers – throughout all of your branch offices. By selecting the printers that will best fit your needs at each location, networking your entire print fleet and enlisting the help of a trusted Managed Print Services (MPS) provider, your organization will ensure a seamless printing and maintenance experience for all of your end users. This strategic move not only promotes consistency and efficiency but also allows for easier management and troubleshooting across all locations.
Let’s take a closer look at:
Starting your journey toward standardization, consolidation and efficiency begins with a thorough needs assessment. This process is crucial to understand the current state of your print environment. By creating an inventory and mapping out your existing equipment, you'll gain insights into usage patterns and identify any gaps in coverage.
Are there printers collecting dust in one office, while another has queues a mile long? A needs assessment will spot these imbalances.
In addition, a needs assessment goes beyond just counting printers. It evaluates the specific needs of different departments, the print volume they handle and the functionalities required to keep your business humming.
This level of detail ensures that when you do standardize and refresh your equipment, you're choosing the right tools for the job. It's about placing the right printer in the right place for the right task.
While you can conduct a needs assessment yourself, enlisting the help of a MPS provider could give you a fresh perspective. Expert MPS providers will even map out the locations of your current equipment and offer recommendations on how to optimize your print fleet.
Remember, a key step in optimizing your print environment is recognizing when it's time to let go of old, inefficient equipment. Through a needs assessment and partnering with a MPS provider, you can identify devices that are costing you more in maintenance and supplies than they're worth. Eliminating these energy hogs and paper wasters not only cuts your expenses but also boosts your company's sustainability efforts.
Upgrading to newer, more efficient models can lead to significant long-term savings on energy costs and consumables. Plus, when you optimize your print fleet you can consolidate your individual printers into shared devices, reducing the total number of devices and freeing up valuable office space. All these savings can be redirected towards growth initiatives, making a compelling case for why retiring that faithful old printer might just be one of the best business decisions you'll make.
Working with a MPS provider includes amazing benefits. In addition to conducting a needs assessment and partnering with you to customize a print fleet solution designed to meet the goals of your organization – there’s more!
A MPS provider takes the burden of daily print management off your shoulders, optimizing your print environment and often resulting in cost reductions of up to 30%. From automated toner replenishment to maintenance and support, a MPS provider ensures your printers are always at peak performance. They also provide valuable insights through comprehensive tracking and reporting, allowing you to make data-driven decisions.
For businesses with multiple locations, MPS providers are experts at scaling with your business. As your organization grows and evolves, they will assist you to adjust your print fleet accordingly, ensuring you're never over or under-equipped.
In this manner, MPS providers are geared to help you focus on your core business tasks by managing the nitty-gritty details of your print infrastructure. It's a strategic partnership that empowers your business to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Let’s take a look at some real-world success stories, featuring our Gordon Flesch Company (GFC) customers.
Faith Technologies Inc. (FTI) had a printer fleet spanning 16 branch offices that served over 1,000 employees. Their printers were not managed as a fleet, but on an individual basis. GFC helped FTI optimize their printing fleet by refreshing their fleet, networking their printers and installing a secure online print management fleet solution. This solution enabled cloud-based secure printing and scanning with administrator-chosen printer access across the fleet for each individual user in the company. FTI is happy with their new solution, especially their employees who travel frequently between branches.
UW Health needed to protect confidential patient information, including printed records, bills and transcripts across their six hospitals and more than 80 outpatient sites. GFC offered a secure managed print solution that would eliminate unnecessary devices and provide centralized support and management for the UW Health print network. In addition, secure print software now helps to ensure confidential records are not accidentally printed or abandoned on a printer. Data has shown that UW Health has reduced their print waste by up to 15% since this change.
Does your company have mismatched printing equipment spread over multiple locations? It's like trying to solve a puzzle where the pieces just don't fit. Standardizing your business equipment, especially multifunction printers, can turn that chaos into harmony. Download your free copy of our Beginner’s Guide to Managed Print. You’ll learn what Managed Print is, how it works and what are some of the signs that it’s time to enlist the help of Gordon Flesch Company.
