Some people say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  Well, not to challenge an age-old adage, but there is always room for growth and development – even for the old dogs – you just have to know what tricks to teach them.

Two buzzwords that have been floating around the office for the past few years have been MFP, or, multifunction printer, and MPS, or, managed print service. You may have heard of them and you may have thought to yourself that it seems like a hassle to overhaul your system (those InkJets still work great, after all), that you wouldn’t know where to start (who can understand that techie babble anyways?), and that the cost may not be worth the headache (how much can paper really cost?).

These may all seem like excellent reasons not to jump off the deep end of printing technology, but if you look closely at the numbers from toner to tune ups and everything in between your printing costs are likely creeping higher and higher.  How to stop this increase in cost lies in establishing a printing management system that works for your company and the only way to do that it to really take a good look at the numbers.

Let’s start with hard costs.  Hard costs are the upfront fees you pay for toner, paper, maintenance and repairs, finishing, shipping, storing and the fulfillment of your printing machine.  These are the costs that are obvious that you get the bills for each month, but they are not the only costs printing incurs.

The secret little sister of the hard cost is soft cost.  Soft costs include design, composition, editing, project management and administration.  These are the intangible fees that accrue that are harder to quantifiably measure because they mostly have to do with measuring how much your time and energy is worth.  Essentially they represent the efficiency cost.

Lack of efficiency is one of the most dangerous habits to fall into in the workplace.  Actions are repeated, the employees are accidentally stepping on each other and repeating tasks and while everyone is trying to figure out who is doing what you are losing time and money.

While implementing an MPS or MFP won’t be a cure-all for every office issue, it will certainly help to streamline a very important part of the business process.  Howard Fenton, a senior technology consultant with NAPL writes, “If we just look at the cost of tracking jobs (as they go through the company) we could calculate the cost with this formula:

10 Minutes/Job x 50 Jobs/Day = 500 Minutes x $30/Hr = $250/Day
$250/Day x 19 Work Days/Month = $4,750/Month x 12 = $57,000/Year”

Running an office with printers and copiers with no structure or management can clearly cost you and it’s likely money that can be better put to use elsewhere in the company.

Implementing an MPS plan is likely far easier than you think.  It starts with an appraisal – it can be done in-house, but it is probably better for an expert to look at the existing system and speak with office administrators to get a clear idea of the company needs and expectations.  The second phase is to look at machinery that would fulfill those needs and grow with the company over a period of time.  Once the necessary upgrades have been made, it’s time to create a system to record your frequency of printing, digitization rate, toner use, paper consumption and repair costs.  These numbers will create a benchmark to work from each month or year to reduce printing costs.  The new machines will also dramatically improve efficiency, which is invaluable in the workplace.  After the initial changes the consulting expert will assume a supportive role and be there as a resource to alert you to new products, conduct reevaluations and coordinate machine maintenance and repairs if needed.

The cost of printing is high, but with the right approach and the right tools it can be brought under control and well within the parameters of reasonable spending making your office run, once again, as a well-oiled, books-balanced machine.

Click here to find out how your business can save up to 30% in print costs in 30 days: