Right now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “It’s 2021, so why is my office still relying on print?” While advances in digital technology are bringing the paperless office closer to reality than ever before, there’s just no getting away from printing. Your business still needs to print, scan, copy, and fax documents. However, that means having the resources and equipment in place to make it all happen.

Managed Print Services (MPS) is all about keeping your workflows running smoothly by keeping your print environment running optimally and cost-effectively. In this blog post, we will go into more detail about Managed Print Services, what you can expect from MPS, and whether it’s an ideal solution for your company’s printing needs.

Managed Print Services: An Introduction

Despite the name, Managed Print Services involves more than just printing—it’s a comprehensive solution for companies looking to maximize efficiency, reduce waste and costs, and boost productivity in their print environment. MPS involves outsourcing the management of the various devices in your office that handle your documentation needs—printers, copiers, scanners, and fax machines—to an office technology professional.

Having a professional in your corner makes it much easier to assess your company’s printing needs, choose the best methods for satisfying those needs, and support the infrastructure in a way that’s most efficient and cost-effective. MPS providers achieve these goals through three basic functions: assessment, optimization, and management:

  • Your MPS provider will assess your company’s current print environment, including the devices and processes used for generating, sending, and storing documents. Afterward, they will make recommendations for creating the optimal print environment.
  • After analyzing your company’s printing needs, they will turn their focus to optimizing the print environment. That means identifying and replacing underperforming devices with more efficient ones, eliminating unnecessary devices, and maximizing productivity by streamlining printer placement and improving ease of use.
  • The next step involves ongoing management of your newly optimized print environment via a variety of crucial functions, from automated replenishment of ink, toner, and other supplies to 24/7 tech support and remote monitoring of your devices.

Overall, Managed Print Services lets you worry less about your equipment infrastructure and focus more on your company’s core mission. Take your printer fleet, for instance. Instead of worrying about repairing or replacing printers, reordering ink, and wondering just how many devices your office needs, you can leave those worries to a trusted MPS provider.

How MPS Will Benefit Your Company

There’s no overstating the myriad of benefits that Managed Print Services offers to businesses, especially small businesses in search of innovative ways of staying competitive against larger corporations. These benefits include:

Increased Productivity – Managing every single piece of equipment in your office is never an easy feat. What’s even more challenging is ensuring your employees can tackle their workflows without getting bogged down or sidetracked by their own equipment’s unreliability. With a solid maintenance roadmap in place, a trusted MPS provider can mitigate and even eliminate issues that have a major impact on your employees’ productivity. By streamlining workflows, MPS providers can increase productivity by ensuring your office operates at peak performance.

Fewer Worries for Your IT Team – Whether you have an in-house IT department or rely on outsourced support, the last thing you want to worry about is your IT team having too much on their plate. Having a trusted Managed Print Services provider on board means one less worry about a crucial aspect of your office.

Improved Security – In an age where malicious threats can come from online and offline sources, safeguarding your print environment against these and other potential risks is paramount. A comprehensive security assessment can reveal not just the most obvious of threats, but also hidden dangers you may not be aware of. Your MPS provider can outline and implement security plans that are custom-tailored to your print environment. Through continuous audits, software and firmware updates, and ongoing system improvements, your Managed Print Services provider will ensure your office is ready to face any number of cybersecurity challenges.

Significant Cost Savings – There’s no better feeling than knowing you saved your company a sizable sum of money. Investing in Managed Print Services lets you reap the rewards of cost reduction. By optimizing your print environment, streamlining processes, and enacting stricter controls on printer usage and consumables, MPS can help you realize an improved bottom line.

Predictable Budgeting – For many companies, it’s hard to predict how much they’ll spend on their document output in any given quarter. Unfortunately, these unpredictable expenses can easily result in cost overruns and other issues that take away from annual returns. Managed Print Services can help control these costs through accurate resource tracking and improved organization. The result is a more manageable budget that remains stable year after year, giving your company more opportunities to generate profit.

Is Managed Print Services Right for You?

If you’re not sure whether your business can truly benefit from Managed Print Services, here are a few quick questions to ask yourself:

  • Does your company have an existing print strategy? Defining an in-house print strategy is time-consuming; that’s why so many businesses often lack one for managing their print environment. With MPS, you’ll have a team of experts ready to explore and implement print strategies best suited for your specific document output requirements.
  • Is your IT department biting off more than it can chew? Taking care of a print environment on top of other IT duties can stretch all but the largest of IT departments to the brink. MPS lets your IT team focus on other critical areas of your company.
  • How much is your print environment costing you? You may be keeping track of your print costs when it comes to equipment, supplies, and service, but that’s only part of the picture. There are many other components you may not be aware of, thereby making it difficult to judge the true cost of your print environment. A trusted MPS provider can identify and keep track of these details for you, giving you a broader picture when it comes to the true cost of printing.

Consider the above as you explore your mid-Atlantic business’s options for a proven and trustworthy MPS provider. To learn more about Managed Print Services or speak with a KDI Office Technology representative about an initial assessment, contact us today.