Over time, print fleets tend to grow haphazardly, leading to a mix of printers of various ages and models. IT teams often struggle to keep track of these various devices, let alone understand their cost and security implications.
These unchecked expenses and inefficiencies can significantly impact operations, especially for businesses with multiple locations.
Managed print services is a go-to solution for companies facing these challenges, but it’s not always what it seems. Let’s review the challenges you are likely to face when using a Managed Print provider, and explore an alternative — one you may not know is available to you.
The problem with managed print services
Managed print services promise to take over your existing print environment, managing printers on a break-fix model and providing essential supplies like toner.
While this sounds ideal (especially for IT teams who have a lot on their plates), it often falls short in practice. Here’s why:
- Limited flexibility — MPS agreements tend to be rigid, hindering your ability to grow and adopt new, innovative solutions.
- Downtime and delays — Devices can be down for days waiting for the right parts or for someone to figure out the specific issue.
- IT burden — Your IT team still needs to manage permissions, updates, and troubleshooting for a variety of devices.
These challenges highlight the need for a more streamlined approach to printer fleet management, which is where printer standardization comes into play.
The benefits of printer standardization
Standardizing your fleet of printers can result in significant cost savings, increased efficiencies, improved user and employee experiences, and much more. Here are some of the benefits you may experience:
- Less frustration for IT — Troubleshooting and managing updates can overwhelm your IT team, especially if protocols differ across devices and locations. Transitioning to a standardized environment streamlines this process. Rather than trying to troubleshoot a wide variety of devices, your IT team can focus on mastering a smaller subset of devices, saving time, effort, and frustration.
- Lower training and onboarding costs — By standardizing your printer fleet, you are not only minimizing the training needed to operate different printers, but also greatly easing the process of changing departments or locations, removing the need for additional time spent on learning new devices.
- Less unexpected downtime — Even with a managed printer service, a machine breakdown can lead to a delay in ordering specific parts or diagnosing the problem. With a standardized fleet, technicians service and carry parts for a limited range of models, enabling them to quickly repair devices, typically on the first visit.
- Improved printer cybersecurity — Legacy printers can pose significant security risks, providing hackers with potential access points into your network. Standardization ensures all locations and devices adhere to uniform protocols, facilitating easier management and timely, low-effort security updates.
- More predictable expenses and print forecasting — With improved insights, you’ll be better able to predict upcoming expenses based on historical usage.
- More consistency — From printing equipment and procedures to consumables, you’ll know what you need every time. There won’t be a question of what each unique location or device requires to operate at peak performance.
Start saving with printer standardization
At UBEO, we believe that printer standardization is the key to improving efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing the overall user experience in your office.
Ready to get started? With our Business Technology Assessment, our team of experts will help you identify the best options for your unique needs, set up your new devices, and provide ongoing support to prevent downtime.