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Print environment analytics boosts efficiency, curbs costs


Johannesburg, 15 Jun 2021
Tosi Fasinro, Global Lead Analytics & Insight at Xerox Services.
Tosi Fasinro, Global Lead Analytics & Insight at Xerox Services.

Effective, proactive analytics in the document management and print environment has become a priority for global organisations seeking to adapt and optimise their environments in the new normal.

This is according to Tosi Fasinro, Global Lead Analytics & Insight at Xerox Services, who says now more than ever before, organisations are looking for assistance to transition to the new normal of flexible workplaces and new financial constraints. “Those that use the right analytics tools, people and processes effectively will be those that ultimately succeed,” he says.

Fasinro says the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed office environments. “It hastened the speed of digital transformation and has also driven organisations to look at re-optimising their assets to meet their new flexible workplace needs.”

In the document management and print environment, optimisation means much more than controlling costs incurred through excessive or unnecessary printing. Fasinro explains: “Printing is part of a workflow process, so by analysing the environment and print volumes, we can map workflows and identify ways to make processes as efficient and automated as possible.

Cost is always a big factor for organisations, but the costs they see are just the tip of the iceberg. There are costs associated with fleet management, life cycle and storage. In addition to impacting running costs, the print environment impacts productivity, efficiency, environmental and sustainability goals, as well as enterprise risk and information security. With effective analytics, all of these areas can be improved.”

Jonathan Osbourne, Altron Document Solutions head of sales, says local customers are increasingly seeing the benefits of deploying analytics on their networks. “Without analytics, they might have to look at print volumes across all the printers in the organisation – and there could be thousands of them – wasting time and money. They would then have to look at print and scan volumes, then go to the sites and speak to people about what processes the device helps them conduct. To do a proper, thorough assessment in this way could take months, so it’s very difficult for them to get ahead of the curve without analytics. When they deploy analytics on the network, they can extract the history and within hours have a trend analysis, see what departments print and scan the most; and within a week they can produce a very accurate ROI report and get accurate insights into areas where they can reduce unnecessary print.”

With a track record of over 20 years as a trusted managed print services partner, Xerox takes a leadership role in showing how analytics can help address key business challenges.

“Our technologies, people and processes enable two key areas – device analytics and user-based analytics,” he says. “Device analytics looks at factors such as how many machines there are, print volumes, environmental impact and power consumption. Then when you move through to user-based analytics, it really gets interesting – analysing what individual users and departments are actually doing from a usage point of view. It reports on the types of applications being used, when they print, and where they are printing from. This provides valuable insights to various decision-makers – from the information security team through to the environmental officer.”

Innovative Xerox Analytics tools such as Rapid Assessment Tool, Asset DB and CompleteView Pro help organisations understand the full scope of the print environment across Xerox and non-Xerox devices. The Xerox User Analytics Service unlocks the data hidden in print management systems to capture savings, improve sustainability, tighten information security and drive digital transformation; while the Xerox Print Awareness Tool inspires smarter printing decisions by providing insight into the costs, productivity and environmental impact of each print job.

Fasinro notes that analytics is most effective when applied to drive continuous improvement. “At Xerox, our people know they work as trusted advisors, so we deliver this insight and data proactively and regularly, working with customers throughout the life of the contract to continually improve the performance of the service we sold them.”

For over a decade, Altron Document Solutions has been assisting leading enterprises in the South African market to use Xerox Managed Print Services analytics tools to optimise their print environments for greater cost savings, visibility, efficiency and productivity.

Xerox Intelligent Workplace Services uses comprehensive security, analytics, digitisation and cloud technologies and software to deliver a more seamless work experience across paper and digital platforms.

Altron Document Solutions is the world’s largest Xerox distributor and Africa’s leading technology and services company. It markets and services the complete range of Xerox document equipment, software solutions and services to 26 sub-Saharan Africa countries. Altron Document Solutions forms part of the JSE-listed Altron group.


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