December 10, 2019
Despite decades of hype, digital technology has yet to eliminate the need for paper and printing. What digital technology has done is revolutionize the way we can use paper and printing.
Perhaps nothing more precisely epitomizes the effective marriage of digital tech and printing than Managed Print Services (MPS).
If you’re just getting familiar with managed print, read our Beginner’s Guide to MPS. But if you’re ready to see the numbers that prove MPS’s value as a solution for the short and long-term, read on.
We’ve talked a lot about the cybersecurity liabilities presented by unmanaged printers.
And it’s become clear that the devices and connections that make up the print infrastructure at most organizations will continue to be vulnerable to costly cyber attacks. The fact that more than three-quarters of organizations aren’t confident in how their print security is designed and managed is clear evidence of this.
But there’s no good reason for allowing this security liability to exist. A trusted partner like ARC can create an MPS program for you that will significantly reduce the chances of a cyberattack on your print infrastructure.
As we mentioned in the intro, digital tech has not created the paperless office we’ve been promised for decades. But that’s okay. We don’t need to stop printing to be more efficient. In fact, given that well over half of organizations believe printing will remain important to their daily operations, it would be counterproductive to try and completely eliminate the need for print.
That said, digital technology has changed the way we work and it has the power to change the way we print. With the evolution of digital technology, MPS providers can now add even more value through various digital tools such as analytics and automated controls that weren’t available in the past. In short, MPS can help you maintain the integrity of your print operation while also making it much more efficient.
Though it’s a print-related solution, at its core, MPS is a digital enabler. The increasing number of companies that recognize this are using MPS as a key enabler of their transition into truly digital workflows.
Ted Buscaglia, Executive Vice President of Global Services at ARC, explained in a webcast titled The Great Lie: Debunking the Paperless Office Myth, that to unlock the efficiencies of digital transformations, organizations are best served by taking a phased approach. In this phased approach, MPS acts as a critical bridge between traditional, analog processes and modern, digital ones.
If you’re shocked to learn that as much as three percent of an organization’s revenue goes to print costs, you’re not alone. The problem is, print spend is generally divided up into line items of a P&L. These costs get spread across multiple departments and, as a result, no one really knows how much the organization is spending on printing.
Survival in today’s hypercompetitive market requires cost-efficiency and an effective MPS program ensures you get the most out of every dollar in your printing budget by analyzing, controlling, and reducing equipment, maintenance, and consumable costs.
Beyond the cost and inefficiency impact that wasteful printing has on your organization, is the damage it does to the environment. For perspective, one tree generally produces about 8,333 sheets of paper. So if you consider that the average office worker in the U.S. uses 10,000 sheets per year, you can see that we’re using up more than one tree per year per office worker.
That equates to a massive (and unnecessary) waste of natural resources that can be significantly curtailed with a sustainable MPS program designed to eliminate wasteful printing.
Though this stat is unique to ARC’s MPS solutions, it’s worth mentioning to demonstrate what a big impact our MPS programs can have on the environment. In addition to making your print operations more efficient and eliminating unnecessary printing, ARC also offers organizations the opportunity to participate in our Print & Plant Program.
You can read more about the program here. But the way it works is simple—for every 8,333 sheets of paper your organization prints (which is the equivalent of one tree), you donate one dollar. That dollar goes to our partner, One Tree Planted, who uses that dollar to plant one tree. In addition to that, ARC will match each dollar you donate so two trees are planted for every tree you use up in paper.
ARC’s MPS customers regularly save up to 30% on their print spend. But don’t take our word for it. Take a minute to evaluate exactly how much you could save by using our managed print savings calculator.
All you have to do is enter the number of employees in your organization, the number of devices your organization uses, and your approximate print volume, and our calculator will generate an estimate of your potential annual savings from MPS. Give it a try.