Printing is an essential function for nearly any business, from corporate enterprises to small and midsize companies and small offices. Many businesses purchase printers without a great deal of consideration to the anticipated life of the devices, future growth in printing requirements, or even the long-term cost of printing supplies.
How do you know when it’s time to upgrade your print hardware and what benefits you might realize from replacing an individual printer – or your entire printer fleet?
5 Reasons Businesses Should Upgrade Print Equipment
Just as with the computers that keep businesses running efficiently, printers are constantly being updated with new technology and features. Today’s multifunction printers offer businesses the combined capabilities of faxing, copying, printing, and scanning – all in a single unit.
Over time, even small businesses (SMBs) acquire multiple devices for each office function, often cluttering desks with a mixed population of desktop printers, copiers, scanners, and fax machines.
Here’s how you can transform your office printing solutions, improve productivity, and save money from upgrading your print equipment.
1. Benefit from Features You Need – But Don’t Have
Modern multifunction printers are loaded with technology that allows businesses to scan documents directly to electronic format. This saves an enormous amount of time in retyping materials into word documents, spreadsheets, or other useful formats.
Copy a document directly to email – including the use of distribution lists that are predefined and stored for reuse. This eliminates manual processes and enhances print security through electronic distribution.
2. Cost-saving
Print hardware including scanners, copiers, and fax machines take up valuable real estate in most offices. Upgrading to modern equipment replaces multiple devices with a single unit that saves space, provides new features, and makes your business more efficient.
This upgrade not only saves space and eliminates desk clutter, but there can also be significant savings in utility costs when replacing these older power-hungry units with energy-efficient units that incorporate green printing practices. This will reduce your environmental impact and demonstrate a green initiative.
Cost per printed page is reduced as well, with newfound efficiency in printing technology and supplies that provide more images per lifecycle than outdated print hardware.
Centralizing your supplier for maintenance, cartridges, and other consumables reduces operating expenses over dealing with multiple providers and service contracts.
3. Workflow Integration
Upgrading your print hardware provides new functionality that streamlines business processes. Workflow automates manual functions such as routing documents to the right resource for action or notification. Scanning a purchase order can route the document directly to the appropriate party for review and approval, and also send it to your supplier.
When you need access to critical documents from multiple locations or by several departments, scan the item once, routing it to all parties electronically, or to cloud storage for review and collaboration from anywhere.
4. Security Upgrades
Today’s printers incorporate multiple levels of security. This has become increasingly important to protect confidential information, especially for businesses that handle regulated information such as healthcare records or financial transactions.
When printing secure documents, controls can be implemented that prevent actual printing until the document owner is physically present at the printer and scans an ID card or enters a secure PIN to authorize printing. This reduces the potential for someone else picking up unauthorized documents or sharing them with other employees.
5. Print Output Monitoring
Many companies are not fully aware of just how much printing is done within the business, what is printed, and who is doing the printing. With modern multifunction printers and managed print services (MPS), data is captured to monitor exactly what is being printed, where, and by what individuals or departments.
Monitoring reveals additional ways to save printing expenses such as reducing the amount of color printing utilized or identifying excess copies that are not necessary.
What to Look for in a Modern Printer
Today’s printers have been transformed to take less space, use less power, and utilize supplies more efficiently. When evaluating the right printer for your office, there are several key factors to be considered:
Connectivity – if you need access to the printer from mobile devices, select a unit that facilitates wireless connections. High-speed Ethernet connectivity is also useful in most offices where the printer can be connected to a network.
Supplies – a significant portion of printing expense is in on-going supplies – toner, cartridges, maintenance kits, etc. Make sure you have a cost-effective plan for managing the acquisition and use of supplies. Dealing with a single supplier for all printer needs can contribute to cost savings.
Function – ensure that any printer being considered suits all your needs including wide-format printing, color vs. monochrome, speed, and services such as scanning or faxing.
Ease of use – if a printer is too complicated for general use by employees, it will not provide the cost savings and productivity boost you’re looking for. Make sure the printer is user-friendly, and that the provider offers at least initial training on its usage, as well as on-going service.
Dealing with a reputable printer supplier and installing recognized brand names in print hardware will maximize your cost savings while improving business workflow.