Print Outsourcing
The practice of outsourcing is used in many areas of information technology. We are accustomed to using the provided communication channels, many companies rent servers or virtual platforms from hosting providers, so why not outsource and print?
At first glance, it seems that printing is a very simple procedure. It would seem that the dye is applied to the paper - it is enough to calculate the cost of paper and the cost of ink, and you get the cost of the print. However, as HP notes in its materials, “up to 90% of printing costs are hidden.” It is clear that the figure of 90% is greatly overestimated, but the idea itself is really interesting - what if we estimate the indirect costs associated with printing?
In addition, the Kyocera brochure recently came across as an estimate of the load on printers and MFPs during the day, graphics updates and write-offs, as well as many other interesting tables that somehow prove the benefits of printing services from a supplier. In fact, all this makes sense, and most companies even have no idea how much printing in offices and other departments costs for them in reality. In order to satisfy the need of such customers to optimize printing costs, manufacturers and system integrators began offering print management services, called MDS (Managed Document Services) in the West or, otherwise, copied printing.
All this leads to thoughts ... and at least the following positions immediately come to mind:
• Administrator working time
• Repair and maintenance equipment
• uneconomical printing by staff
• Document reprinting due to poor quality (in the case of refilling)
• Unauthorized printing of personal documents by employees
• Excess print in color (if not needed)
• Printing documents that print to anything (e-mail, brochures)
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What are the benefits?
In the first approximation, the benefits of using MDS are obvious - there is no need to introduce special print control solutions (the supplier will provide detailed statistics on who and how many printed when creating the account), the ability to free IT staff for other more useful activities, the exclusion of their own warehouse of consumables and, of course, obtaining integrated services not only in the central office, but also in the regions.
Moreover, the transition to one supplier in theory should eliminate unnecessary downtime due to the refusal of the "zoo" of equipment from various manufacturers, their maintenance and the need to store components and consumables for different models. As a rule, the practice of MDS involves the installation of one or more powerful printers that serve a whole department, floor, or even the entire company (if we are talking about SMB).
There are also theses about improving the conditions for improving the security of data distribution. Theoretically, this is possible, because the software for copy printing keeps track of all printed documents, thus, it is possible to track data leaks (of course, if other channels of leaks, such as external media, are excluded). However, how useful it is is not entirely clear.
On the other hand, it turns out that you no longer control your printers. That is, you are tied to the services of a single supplier who exposes you a certain cost per A4 print, for example, in color and in monochrome. And you will print it this way and precisely at that cost. Is it profitable? It seems to be, but how to test in practice? To give some guarantees, solution providers offer to fix some KPI parameters in the contract, upon reaching which the client should be satisfied - for example, reducing printing costs to 15% and so on.
For big or for small
Most of the materials on MDS say that printing services are relevant for both large and small companies, but in practice this directly depends on the supplier you have chosen and on your “tariff plan”. In my opinion, for large organizations, the benefits of MDS are more obvious, since the presence of heterogeneous equipment and large print volumes make it possible to obtain a clear benefit when unifying, as well as refusing to service devices and store consumables.
But the question remains: "Can small companies with the right approach benefit from the use of MDS"? Indeed, for many small offices, this actually means purchasing a printer or an MFP with the included service. In this case, the customer uses the printer as a service, without worrying about what you need to monitor, maintain, change consumables.
At first glance, it seems that printing is a very simple procedure. It would seem that the dye is applied to the paper - it is enough to calculate the cost of paper and the cost of ink, and you get the cost of the print. However, as HP notes in its materials, “up to 90% of printing costs are hidden.” It is clear that the figure of 90% is greatly overestimated, but the idea itself is really interesting - what if we estimate the indirect costs associated with printing?
In addition, the Kyocera brochure recently came across as an estimate of the load on printers and MFPs during the day, graphics updates and write-offs, as well as many other interesting tables that somehow prove the benefits of printing services from a supplier. In fact, all this makes sense, and most companies even have no idea how much printing in offices and other departments costs for them in reality. In order to satisfy the need of such customers to optimize printing costs, manufacturers and system integrators began offering print management services, called MDS (Managed Document Services) in the West or, otherwise, copied printing.
All this leads to thoughts ... and at least the following positions immediately come to mind:
• Administrator working time
• Repair and maintenance equipment
• uneconomical printing by staff
• Document reprinting due to poor quality (in the case of refilling)
• Unauthorized printing of personal documents by employees
• Excess print in color (if not needed)
• Printing documents that print to anything (e-mail, brochures)
')
What are the benefits?
In the first approximation, the benefits of using MDS are obvious - there is no need to introduce special print control solutions (the supplier will provide detailed statistics on who and how many printed when creating the account), the ability to free IT staff for other more useful activities, the exclusion of their own warehouse of consumables and, of course, obtaining integrated services not only in the central office, but also in the regions.
Moreover, the transition to one supplier in theory should eliminate unnecessary downtime due to the refusal of the "zoo" of equipment from various manufacturers, their maintenance and the need to store components and consumables for different models. As a rule, the practice of MDS involves the installation of one or more powerful printers that serve a whole department, floor, or even the entire company (if we are talking about SMB).
There are also theses about improving the conditions for improving the security of data distribution. Theoretically, this is possible, because the software for copy printing keeps track of all printed documents, thus, it is possible to track data leaks (of course, if other channels of leaks, such as external media, are excluded). However, how useful it is is not entirely clear.
On the other hand, it turns out that you no longer control your printers. That is, you are tied to the services of a single supplier who exposes you a certain cost per A4 print, for example, in color and in monochrome. And you will print it this way and precisely at that cost. Is it profitable? It seems to be, but how to test in practice? To give some guarantees, solution providers offer to fix some KPI parameters in the contract, upon reaching which the client should be satisfied - for example, reducing printing costs to 15% and so on.
For big or for small
Most of the materials on MDS say that printing services are relevant for both large and small companies, but in practice this directly depends on the supplier you have chosen and on your “tariff plan”. In my opinion, for large organizations, the benefits of MDS are more obvious, since the presence of heterogeneous equipment and large print volumes make it possible to obtain a clear benefit when unifying, as well as refusing to service devices and store consumables.
But the question remains: "Can small companies with the right approach benefit from the use of MDS"? Indeed, for many small offices, this actually means purchasing a printer or an MFP with the included service. In this case, the customer uses the printer as a service, without worrying about what you need to monitor, maintain, change consumables.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/176183/
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