“Does my office have too many printers, too few, or is it just right?”
We hear this question all the time—but the answer is not always so simple.
When deciding on the ideal number of printers for your office, you don’t want to inconvenience your employees with long walks to the printer, and you want to get the most use out of your print devices. When looking to optimize the number of printers in your workplace environment, there are many different factors.
It’s not likely that your company is going to go completely paperless anytime soon, so it’s necessary to have a Managed Print Services (MPS) partner that will assess your environment and determine the correct device ratio that fits your organization’s needs. You want to maximize your investment in your print devices and what it is costing to operate these printers annually.
How Print Affects Your Budget & Bottom Line?
So how exactly can a lack of print environment optimization eat away at your bottom line? The initial purchasing of print devices, constant purchase of supplies, rising energy costs, and retrieving print jobs are all substantial money and time wasters.
Many organizations may have different brands of printer devices, which require significantly higher maintenance from your IT Help Desk, as well as additional supply costs.
An MPS partner should minimize the number of print device brands to no more than two in order to save time for your IT help desk members, as well as decrease the amount of money you spend on supplies.
Assess Your Company’s Print Needs
It is important to note that one department’s printer needs might be drastically different than another’s. For many departments like Billing or Human Resources, the documents they print are sensitive and cannot risk exposure to other departments.
When given an assessment by an MPS provider, it is essential that department security needs are taken into consideration. Certain software like PaperCut gives you secure print options that ensure any sensitive documents will not sit in your device trays and expose you to a security breach or compliance issue.
You should also look for an MPS partner that manages your toner inventory and analyzes your page counts. An extraordinary provider will track your inventory to make sure that you are up-to-date on all of the right supplies without having an unnecessary surplus.
This reduces the anxiety of knowing when you need to order new toners, paper, or maintenance kits to avoid production delays if you run out. It also reduces the need to invest unnecessary capital in an excessive inventory supply.
Your MPS partner should also analyze the volume of printing each department is producing and implement new processes that will help save your organization time and money.
Choosing the Final Number of Office Printers
There is no golden rule for knowing how many printers your office needs. An assessment with an MPS provider will help you to understand who is printing in your organization, how much they are printing, and how many devices are needed.
This assessment is the first stage of a proactive relationship that will identify all of your print problems and help your employees to be more productive and happy.
If you want to find out how you can reduce the number of print devices and print jobs in your office environment, schedule a complimentary Discovery Call with imageOne at a time that’s convenient for you
