Savings on consumables. Science Nefi
Hi, GeekTimes! The cost of printing, perhaps - the most serious problem associated with the maintenance and use of a fleet of printing devices. There is no such company that would not strive to reduce the cost of one print of a paper document. And there is no such amateur from IT, who would not have a prescription savings.
Meanwhile, real (and effective, not at the expense of print quality or reliability of equipment) savings can be achieved through adherence to a few simple principles.
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This path is not for everyone. First, in order for the outsourcing service to be beneficial for the customer, his printer fleet and print volumes must be large enough (usually, at least 100 computers and 10 printing devices). Secondly, this company in general must be ready to organize printing as a service, “letting” outsiders into its infrastructure. Trusting an outsourcing company is akin to trusting in the clouds. The benefits would seem obvious, but possible biases may exceed it. And, nevertheless, if the company satisfies these two conditions, it is worthwhile to very carefully consider the possibility of transferring the seal "to the side."
The print outsourcing service is multifaceted, and an outsourcing contract can include many components. But, how complicated the contract with the contractor would be, he will provide savings on consumables thanks to the pricing principle: the customer pays for the print. How many pages will be printed, and so much will have to pay - and a penny more. At the same time, the cost of the print will be clearly lower than that which you achieve by organizing print management yourself.
Outsourcing also eliminates the need to purchase consumables, and the cost of maintenance of equipment, and from the headache associated with the organization of the printing infrastructure. But this difference will be noticeable if the print volumes in the company are large enough. Otherwise, the benefit will be insignificant. For example, one distribution company ordering this service from us, managed to gradually reduce the cost of a print to 30%. Considering the fact that the print volumes of her account for tens of thousands of sheets per month, the savings were more than solid.
Therefore, before you start looking for an outsourcer, you should decide and readily give the seal to the hands of a third-party service, and with prospects for real savings. However, there are many advantages of printing outsourcing, and we will tell about them separately.
The second way to save is to buy consumables only from trusted suppliers . It is for those who, for one reason or another, are unwilling or unable to use the printing outsourcing service. It remains to enjoy the benefits of the market, especially since it is very developed and wide.
And here we need to recall what we said at the beginning. Supply of consumables seems to be a simple matter, and this circumstance attracts many very different companies to the market. Among them are those that appeared on the market by chance. For the most part, they are not authorized by vendors, purchase consumables from intermediaries or occasional suppliers, have very weak protection against counterfeit (and sometimes deliberately supply fake cartridges) and, most importantly, are not able to offer good financial conditions to their customers.
The fact is that professional companies engaged in the sale of consumables, most often lead a complex business and are necessarily authorized by most manufacturers of printing equipment. This guarantees the supply of only genuine cartridges (HP, for example, regularly inspects the stores of its authorized partners for the absence of counterfeits) and more favorable prices provided to partners. For a customer, the difference can reach 10% of the average price level in the market.
You may have heard rumors about “secret” programs: a specially authorized supplier can open your access to a corporate contract, under which you can buy original HP contract cartridges by 20% cheaper than their standard counterparts. If you are interested in this topic, leave a comment under the post, and in one of the following entries we will highlight it in more detail.
In addition, suppliers operating in the market for a long time, have considerable expertise in their field. Of course, we recommend the use of original consumables, but during the last two crises we faced a significant increase in demand for compatible cartridges. In response to this demand, we conducted an examination of various brands in this segment, and as a result of many years of selection, we focused on those brands that offer the best price / quality ratio. For the experiments, we used two absolutely identical HP MFPs and loaded them with work equally. One used the original HP cartridge, the other a compatible one. Problems with low-quality compatible cartridges appeared on day 4-5: “papers” appeared on the documents - small dirt, “hairs”, and blurred letters. Some toner cartridges were trite, and some had a gray tone instead of a white sheet when printing. The problems of compatible color laser cartridges are especially noticeable - irregular color rendition, motion blur, fading. Such printouts were embarrassing to show customers.
Another trump card of specialized companies is a set of additional services and related products. Such suppliers are able to offer paper, accessories, peripherals, and their service departments are advantageous to use for servicing equipment. And, of course, it is beneficial to involve such companies as consultants, because the economy is based on rational printing.
Properly built printing infrastructure , with all the importance of direct savings on the cost of consumables (or the cost of printing) remains, whatever one may say, the most important element in streamlining printing costs. Therefore, we repeat in a condensed form what has already been told in previous posts . Proper distribution of the load on the fleet of printing devices in accordance with their characteristics and capabilities can bring the company up to 20% savings in printing costs. This includes planning the placement of printers and multifunction printers in the office, organizing access to them for certain employees, monitoring the use of printing devices while simultaneously fighting against their inappropriate use, monitoring the current status of printers, monitoring the balance of consumables in printers, and even competent budgeting.
We have a whole anthology of examples of how not to organize printing. One of the most striking: from a small travel company received a request for consulting. The director complained of completely inadequate printing costs. Printing volumes were small, less than 10 thousand sheets per month, but the cost of the print went off scale. We didn’t even have time to set up specialized software - it turned out that the “coming” system administrator had guessed to set up a color printer for the customer service department, which, according to the idea, was purchased only for printing marketing materials in small quantities. The staff, without thinking twice, printed out the current documentation on it. It turned out very beautiful - in color, with excellent design. The price of the print was also more beautiful than ever - three times higher than it should have been.
This is a glaring example, but very revealing. The losses were caused by the lack of elementary order and the culture of using printers.
A well-established and well-functioning infrastructure, along with the observance of simple rules when organizing procurement, will reduce the cost of one print of a paper document by 25%. Many of our customers achieve this effect due to the elementary order in procurement and distribution of the load on printers.
All these are ways to directly save on consumables. But there are other ways to reduce costs. For example - the organization of access to corporate MFPs and printers. It will be about user authentication, which helps to solve another, much more difficult task - compliance with information security measures. Keep for updates.
Meanwhile, real (and effective, not at the expense of print quality or reliability of equipment) savings can be achieved through adherence to a few simple principles.
')
Print Outsourcing
This path is not for everyone. First, in order for the outsourcing service to be beneficial for the customer, his printer fleet and print volumes must be large enough (usually, at least 100 computers and 10 printing devices). Secondly, this company in general must be ready to organize printing as a service, “letting” outsiders into its infrastructure. Trusting an outsourcing company is akin to trusting in the clouds. The benefits would seem obvious, but possible biases may exceed it. And, nevertheless, if the company satisfies these two conditions, it is worthwhile to very carefully consider the possibility of transferring the seal "to the side."
The print outsourcing service is multifaceted, and an outsourcing contract can include many components. But, how complicated the contract with the contractor would be, he will provide savings on consumables thanks to the pricing principle: the customer pays for the print. How many pages will be printed, and so much will have to pay - and a penny more. At the same time, the cost of the print will be clearly lower than that which you achieve by organizing print management yourself.
Outsourcing also eliminates the need to purchase consumables, and the cost of maintenance of equipment, and from the headache associated with the organization of the printing infrastructure. But this difference will be noticeable if the print volumes in the company are large enough. Otherwise, the benefit will be insignificant. For example, one distribution company ordering this service from us, managed to gradually reduce the cost of a print to 30%. Considering the fact that the print volumes of her account for tens of thousands of sheets per month, the savings were more than solid.
Therefore, before you start looking for an outsourcer, you should decide and readily give the seal to the hands of a third-party service, and with prospects for real savings. However, there are many advantages of printing outsourcing, and we will tell about them separately.
Only verified suppliers
The second way to save is to buy consumables only from trusted suppliers . It is for those who, for one reason or another, are unwilling or unable to use the printing outsourcing service. It remains to enjoy the benefits of the market, especially since it is very developed and wide.
And here we need to recall what we said at the beginning. Supply of consumables seems to be a simple matter, and this circumstance attracts many very different companies to the market. Among them are those that appeared on the market by chance. For the most part, they are not authorized by vendors, purchase consumables from intermediaries or occasional suppliers, have very weak protection against counterfeit (and sometimes deliberately supply fake cartridges) and, most importantly, are not able to offer good financial conditions to their customers.
The fact is that professional companies engaged in the sale of consumables, most often lead a complex business and are necessarily authorized by most manufacturers of printing equipment. This guarantees the supply of only genuine cartridges (HP, for example, regularly inspects the stores of its authorized partners for the absence of counterfeits) and more favorable prices provided to partners. For a customer, the difference can reach 10% of the average price level in the market.
You may have heard rumors about “secret” programs: a specially authorized supplier can open your access to a corporate contract, under which you can buy original HP contract cartridges by 20% cheaper than their standard counterparts. If you are interested in this topic, leave a comment under the post, and in one of the following entries we will highlight it in more detail.
In addition, suppliers operating in the market for a long time, have considerable expertise in their field. Of course, we recommend the use of original consumables, but during the last two crises we faced a significant increase in demand for compatible cartridges. In response to this demand, we conducted an examination of various brands in this segment, and as a result of many years of selection, we focused on those brands that offer the best price / quality ratio. For the experiments, we used two absolutely identical HP MFPs and loaded them with work equally. One used the original HP cartridge, the other a compatible one. Problems with low-quality compatible cartridges appeared on day 4-5: “papers” appeared on the documents - small dirt, “hairs”, and blurred letters. Some toner cartridges were trite, and some had a gray tone instead of a white sheet when printing. The problems of compatible color laser cartridges are especially noticeable - irregular color rendition, motion blur, fading. Such printouts were embarrassing to show customers.
Another trump card of specialized companies is a set of additional services and related products. Such suppliers are able to offer paper, accessories, peripherals, and their service departments are advantageous to use for servicing equipment. And, of course, it is beneficial to involve such companies as consultants, because the economy is based on rational printing.
Infrastructure order
Properly built printing infrastructure , with all the importance of direct savings on the cost of consumables (or the cost of printing) remains, whatever one may say, the most important element in streamlining printing costs. Therefore, we repeat in a condensed form what has already been told in previous posts . Proper distribution of the load on the fleet of printing devices in accordance with their characteristics and capabilities can bring the company up to 20% savings in printing costs. This includes planning the placement of printers and multifunction printers in the office, organizing access to them for certain employees, monitoring the use of printing devices while simultaneously fighting against their inappropriate use, monitoring the current status of printers, monitoring the balance of consumables in printers, and even competent budgeting.
We have a whole anthology of examples of how not to organize printing. One of the most striking: from a small travel company received a request for consulting. The director complained of completely inadequate printing costs. Printing volumes were small, less than 10 thousand sheets per month, but the cost of the print went off scale. We didn’t even have time to set up specialized software - it turned out that the “coming” system administrator had guessed to set up a color printer for the customer service department, which, according to the idea, was purchased only for printing marketing materials in small quantities. The staff, without thinking twice, printed out the current documentation on it. It turned out very beautiful - in color, with excellent design. The price of the print was also more beautiful than ever - three times higher than it should have been.
This is a glaring example, but very revealing. The losses were caused by the lack of elementary order and the culture of using printers.
A well-established and well-functioning infrastructure, along with the observance of simple rules when organizing procurement, will reduce the cost of one print of a paper document by 25%. Many of our customers achieve this effect due to the elementary order in procurement and distribution of the load on printers.
All these are ways to directly save on consumables. But there are other ways to reduce costs. For example - the organization of access to corporate MFPs and printers. It will be about user authentication, which helps to solve another, much more difficult task - compliance with information security measures. Keep for updates.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/397129/
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