Rising printing expenses can have a serious impact on an organisation's budget.
Having a sound printing solution in place can dramatically reduce printing costs as well as avoid excessive downtime, says Ravi Perumal, LaserJet and enterprise solutions category manager at HP.
On this note, HP, in partnership with ITWeb, is conducting an online Printing Survey.
The main objectives of the survey are to establish an understanding of organisations' approaches to printing solutions, how they are using these solutions, and if the solutions implemented are successful, as well as to understand the printing landscape in SA.
"Most businesses implement plans to increase efficiency in their printing environments, only to find that maintaining these changes are far more challenging than expected. The objective of this printing survey is to get greater insight into customer experience and impressions," Perumal explains.
He adds that the success or failure of any organisation's implementation of a printing solution lies in its sustainability and whether there are policies in place to prevent the printing solution project from going back to its original state.
When asked what the overall success rate of implementing printing solutions by South African organisations is, Perumal answers: "That's a tough question. From a true MPS [managed print services] perspective, it's probably not a very successful rate, as most organisations see a generic click charge solution. This is not always the case, as a true MPS solution involves more than the cost of printing a single page."
Perumal continues: "When organisations take into account the pros and cons of having an in-house printing solution, or outsourcing their printing requirements, there is always a bit of both. In-house is viable to a point; however, once you factor in binding costs and larger volumes, it does make sense to outsource."
Describing some of the challenges with printing solutions within organisations, Perumal says most day-to-day printing is done in-house, while printing for special events, for example, will more than likely be outsourced.
"Document management and document workflow is key when an organisation considers its printing preferences and development; and cloud computing with regards to document management will become more prevalent," Perumal says.
It seems most large corporates are measuring their printing spend, and according to Perumal, this would most probably be via their rental agreements.
"However, if the organisation owns the printing equipment, then spend can be amortised using software solutions that can allocate costs to different departments," Perumal concludes.
Click here to complete the survey and stand a chance to win an HP Officejet 6700 Premium printer.
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