Cloud models revolutionise printing

Enterprises running large or ageing fleets of printers commonly find that total cost of ownership can be a headache, says Nosipho Simelane, HP South Africa category manager for printing. "The traditional printer environment brings with it high maintenance costs, unnecessarily time-consuming processes and even security risks," she says.

Simelane says cloud-based managed print services and document management solutions address these challenges by offering new efficiencies and cost savings. "With cloud-based document workflow, printing, document management and workflow data are centralised and thus easier to monitor and manage." Managed print services can save enterprises up to 30% on their print environment costs, as well as supporting the mobile enterprise, and enhancing overall efficiency in the workplace, she says.

"Improving the print environment is all about reconstructing the flow," says Simelane. "Enterprises need to begin by right-sizing their fleet and putting the right devices in the right places. Time-consuming manual processes then need to be digitised and automated wherever possible. Then, crucially, enterprises need visibility of the environment in order to manage and track it, enable collaboration, mitigate risk and optimise the infrastructure and processes."

The cloud supports the reinvented print environment, says Simelane. With all scanned and printed documents available in a shared cloud, for example, the growing mobile workforce is able to access these documents from anywhere. In addition, the digitised scanned and printed documents, when archived in a cloud environment, become available for enterprise data analysis. Document delivery is also facilitated by shared cloud access, speeding up workflow in a distributed enterprise.

"This is particularly useful in environments where a large number of contracts or other documents are produced at a branch level. Instead of faxing or couriering documents to a central office, cloud-based solutions allow for documents to be scanned at source and immediately be accessed at a printer or via a PC or mobile device by authorised personnel elsewhere. With advanced text search within the scanned image, and suitable file-naming conventions in place, enterprises can cut what was traditionally a cycle of up to 48 hours down to minutes.

"Public or private cloud environments also support shared access and collaboration, enabling a more streamlined workflow and greater compliance," says Simelane.

"By adding an advanced content management layer to the print environment, and moving it to the cloud, even ageing fleets may be optimised to deliver greater returns and efficiencies," she says.

Legendary, reliable HP LaserJet multifunction printers are now mobile-enabled and cloud-ready, with advanced document management that can transform your paper and digital workflow. They come with enterprise-level security and a single point of control, so you can manage more printers with a lot less work.