Managed print services gain momentum

The awareness of managed print services among South African businesses is low, but the demand for increased corporate governance and sustainability means it's beginning to gain momentum, says Andrew Griffith, product manager for office products at Konica Minolta South Africa.

From an efficiency and cost perspective, Griffith defines managed print services as a business document management methodology that provides companies with the required expertise and experience required for management.

However, he says managed print services are commonly overlooked as a back office business function by a lot of companies.

“Companies need a balanced deployment and effective utilisation of devices as well as processes to facilitate a tighter control over the business's documentation needs, impacting positively on the bottom line. And they need all of these things from a single source supplier,” says Griffith.

He adds that it's important for companies to realise they should change their expectations of a business or office automation product and its suppliers. “They should not just expect a box to be delivered; they should expect a complete process improvement to be delivered and for it to be measurable”.

When applied by credible suppliers, notes Griffith, the managed services methodology helps companies understand where they can improve on their document production and distribution capabilities.

Griffith advises organisations not to overlook managed print services. “Remember your back office is our front office. It serves very little purpose or benefit for an organisation to assign existing resources to manage a back office function.”

He says it's better to free up those resources to perform the core competencies of the company. Responsibility for the back office can then be handed to organisations whose business it is to optimise workflow, increase efficiencies and save costs related to a business's capacity to create, distribute and output its documentation, he adds.

According to Griffith, the primary benefits of managed print services are measured in increased speed of efficiencies and the reduction of costs associated with document production and distribution processes.

“By deploying managed print services, companies are guaranteed higher returns on investment and productivity at lower costs,” says Griffith.

Other values include effectively introducing colour into the business document environment, which has significant cost-saving benefits through controlled and permission-based usage, as well as usage on an on-demand basis. This negates the need for large quantities of letterheads, compliment slips, catalogues, brochures, and so on.

Griffith says managed print services suppliers must include security as part of their assessment programme. “Document security is of vital importance and within a managed print services environment it is leveraged through the amazing technology that vendors are now offering.”

He refers to factors like the enterprise document accounting systems that integrate directly into the multi-function display (MFD) devices to track and record all documents that are printed, copied, scanned or faxed as critical security concerns.

“Other security measures include IP filtering that is also supported, prohibiting connections from terminals that do not match specified IP addresses to prevent unauthorised access and printing by third parties,” he points out.

Griffith also recommends S/MIME encryption which guards against eavesdropping, spoofing, and falsification by encrypting and adding digital signatures to ingoing and outgoing e-mail. “Data can also be encrypted using SSL communication by registering the MFP's device certificate when communicating over a network,” he adds.

PDFs, he points out, are to be protected by more advanced digital IDs in addition to regular passwords.

“PDFs can only be decrypted using a confidential key that is only held by the recipient, effectively preventing information leakage by prohibiting third parties from viewing, printing, or copying encrypted documents. To prevent forgery and falsification, electronic signatures can be added to documents to identify the creator,” explains Griffith.

Furthermore, he says, managed print service solutions such as leveraging document accounting systems with the actual MFD devices also provide companies with comprehensive, customisable and accurate reporting that includes detailed reporting from fleet to device.

Describing the hidden costs of printing, Griffith says the first aspect is lack of control within the document output environment.

“Through our experience, once controls and accountability are introduced into the business environment, there is an immediate and significant drop in page volume as a result of the dramatic decrease in delinquent printing, copying and wastage.”

In terms of environmental friendliness, says Griffith: “The managed services model in its theory and practical use is very green, as the whole aim of the process is to reduce printing volumes to only what is necessary for the business to effectively communicate to all of its relevant stakeholders”.

To find out how local businesses understand the fundamentals of managed print services, ITWeb and Konica Minolta South Africa are running a Managed Print Services Survey.