Executive Debrief
ROI for Managing
Printing
We've heard it many times: printing costs are between 1% and 3% of revenue and increasing. Print remains one of the last areas where tremendous cost savings can be reaped.
So what return can YOU expect to get if you begin to manage your printing?
By simply managing their printers,
our customers realize an average payout of
5.4 months. Why don't
you estimate you payout by selecting the ROI link?
ROI calculator
for managing your printer fleet
PrinterRx training highlight
Enterprise Printer Fleet Management
Grant's Tech Tip
Will PrinterRx pull copier and fax statistics from the MFP's?
PrinterRx will pull the number of pages printed from
the printer. This should include hardcopy from
faxing and copying but this could depend on the
manufacturer and how they store the MFP counters.
While standards for regular printers exist, there
are currently no standards for the MFP counters. The
IEEE Printer Working Group, of which we are a
participating member, is currently working to define
a set of standards for the MFP counters, but it will
be a while before we see this implemented.
So PrinterRx is able to provide # impressions from
an MFP, but until the IEEE standard is implemented,
the output cannot be identified as network printing,
fax or photocopying.
Scanning into an MFP, which is not printed, is not
counted.
For more information
printerRx Support portal.
What's
happening to your printer supplies?
The Spherion Workplace Snapshot research
results:
-20% of office workers ages 18-24 don't
think it's wrong to pilfer office supplies
-25% took some home in the past year
-8% of office workers ages 65 and older
think stealing office supplies is OK
-12% took some in the last year
-more than 50% of office workers take supplies home.
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Billing Issues
Last
month's newsletter looked
at 3 areas of print outsourcing where vendor management is
critical. One area is billing. Billing requires accurate, automatically captured, & timely data.
Billing is a major industry issue!
If you are on lease+ or billed by per page, meter reads have to be collected
either by vendor or supplied by customer. The Customer does not care, nor do
they wish to waste human resources providing information to their vendors.
The Problem: You are
a large supplier and have 50,000 devices in your portfolio with GE Capital.
Multiply your 50,000 devices by 500 or so with each machine’s billing incorrect every month .
You are responsible for getting meter reads for billing.
Sounds simple, but in most cases, companies (your customers) do not report the overages consistently or at all. so
the charges and volumes have to be estimated. Estimates are always 100%
incorrect. Thus an incorrect bill goes out. And it's always
over-estimated. Your customer refuses to pay because the beginning and ending meter reads
are
invalid. What do you do?
In most cases the process of reconciliation or just gathering the data does not happen in time at the end of the month, so
the bill is delayed. Now you need to make concessions to your clients every month in the excess of
$$$ a month because you have not billed nor can you go back
and get the accurate meter reads. This is why getting information off of
printers & MFPs automatically so important.
Now this issue becomes exponential
when you can have a device with 5,10,25 cost centers associated. Solve these issues and the rest is history. Every Dealer
and manufacturer in the copier business has this issue. It was the number one reason why companies
leave vendors to greener pastures - Incorrect Billing costs the customer money and time.
This becomes a huge problem in the
University system because they operate off of Grants. Money is allocated,
and once it is gone it is gone. From a business perspective, quarterly reporting or annual reporting and budgeting , getting bills for last year, or year before does not fit well in the financial department.
This is not isolated issue.
Manufacturers , Dealers, Customers, and just about everyone has problems with accurate billing.
The Solution: The solution is simple - get accurate & timely data.
The data needs to be accessible electronically and automatically fed into
your billing system. And most importantly, you need to minimize human
intervention in the process. Don't give your customers the opportunity
to go to your competitors because of billing issues.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a bill which is accurate & timely ... with NO future billing adjustments?
Get
more information on a PrinterRx solution
Are you missing ink & toner?
The Spherion Workplace Snapshot has found:
î20% of office workers ages 18-24 don't
think it's wrong to pilfer office supplies, and 25% took some home in
the past year.
îBy comparison, only 8% of office workers ages 65 and older think stealing office supplies is OK, and 12% took some in the last year.
Earlier studies found:
îMore than 50% of office workers take supplies home.
It's more than just pens & paper, it's also toner & printer supplies.
Is it happening in printer fleet management? Of course.
True story: At a client site, toner ordering seemed
to change depending upon whether the printer was company-owned or on
per-page billing. Order requisition forms confirmed this
discrepancy, but the process was manual, painful and took time to
uncover.
With a printer fleet management software tool that tracks inventory &
supplies, this type of discrepancy could be highlighted in a timely
fashion. How does supply requisition compare with actual
replacement in the printer devices? Your printer fleet management
product should tell you!
Remember we are talking about something that costs more than champagne
or gold on a volume basis!
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