As one of the last bastions of uncontrolled costs within a business, the printing and copying environments within an organisation are increasingly being outsourced to specialists in the field.
According to Gartner, businesses spend between 1% and 3% of their revenue on document output. The research company has also pointed out that most businesses can save up to 30% of document production costs annually if they properly manage their printer, copier, fax and multifunction product fleets.
In fact, IDC reports that besides the direct cost savings, there are significant indirect cost savings due to higher employee productivity, specifically by improving device uptime and workflow optimisation. IDC also reports that up to 23% of IT help-desk calls are printer-related which indicates the resources which are consumed by the production of documents.
Essentially, organisations are coming to the realisation that if an environment is not part of the core function of the business, it should be outsourced to a specialist company to benefit from specialist knowledge and focus, in order to create higher visibility of actual usage, to implement tighter controls and procedures and ultimately to reduce costs.
From a printing and copying perspective, many companies don`t realise how many devices they have, much less how much they spend on consumables. This has historically been an area that is difficult to control in terms of decentralised, uncontrolled ordering, an excess of consumable stock, theft and a multitude of device types which need to be catered for.
Progressive organisations have begun to appoint specialist managed output services (MOS) service providers not only to implement a standardised corporate specific product range but also to manage consumables and maintenance on a guaranteed uptime basis. This fully managed service provides businesses with a better understanding of business outputs and in this way improves the ability to manage and drive down costs without impacting on business efficiency.
The outsourcing model also means that an organisation has one point of contact for device management, even if they are running multiple brands and numerous models of devices, and can take advantage of collective consumables buying which again leads to reduced overall costs.
Gartner maintains that 40% of SMBs (small and medium businesses) and large businesses in Western Europe will acquire printer consumables through a managed service contract by as early as next year, and from the current initiatives in the local market it seems that South African companies will not be far behind.
By Chris Kruger, Account Manager at Datacentrix
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