subject: What Are Managed Print Services and Does Your Company Need Them? [print this page] What Are Managed Print Services and Does Your Company Need Them?
Managed print services, or MPS, will become a buzzword in the near future in corporate and IT settings because printing costs are the last great black hole of expense for enterprise companies.
So What are Managed Print Services and why should you care?
Managed print service is the new way to manage your fleet of printers. It is a software based solution an IT department can employ to tell them automatically when to order toner, when a printer needs maintenance, and even when a machine is out of paper.
This reduces the need to keep large amounts of toner inventory on hand as well as to constantly monitor your fleet of printers for problems. MPS frees up time spent maintaining printers, can show you which printers are the most economical to use the most and gives you a handle on how much you are printing and how much it is costing your company.
Why is this important? Most large companies have no idea how many printers they have and no clue whether they are optimizing them and how much time is spent keeping them all running.
And that is flying pretty fast in the dark, considering most organizations spend 1-3% of their annual revenue on printing costs, and despite green initiatives and 'paperless' offices, print volumes are still increasing at an average of 11% annually.
The cutting edge technology puts a small piece of software on your network that 24/7 monitors all of your printers - wherever they are - constantly checking for issues, alerting you if there are any, and even allowing for toner supplies to be ordered automatically. All the while the software collects data...providing usage reports that can be used for cost analysis. In other words, making sure you are not sending every print job in the office to the one printer with the most expensive supplies.
For companies or IT departments managing 20 or more printers, this software can be a revelation, and a huge cost saver.
