Author: Rob Farrell

SmartPrint is world class with a 2020 NPS score of 95!

Many companies claim that they have the “best service in the business” but few even have a way to measure how happy their customers really are. At SmartPrint we have a system for everything, including a system that allows us to capture feedback after every service/support call, regardless of whether the service was an on-site emergency, a pro-actively scheduled call, or if it was an avoided on-site service call we were able to close off remotely with our remote service management system. We use the NPS (Net Promoter Score).

The average North American company has an NPS of 30. Some well-loved companies reach scores into the 70s and 80s. NPS is a very simple loyalty metric that holds companies and employees accountable for how they treat their clients. It is a loyalty metric and a discipline for using customer feedback to drive growth in our business. SmartPrint has been using NPS for 10 years and over that period it has provided the information and visibility to help us increase our score year over year. It is interesting, our business growth has mirrored the NPS rapid climb to World Class over this period. There are only 5 Canadian MPS companies with this award and SmartPrint is the only one in the Greater Toronto area with a National reach that has been certified by CEO Juice.

How do we do it? 5 keys to our success

1. Proactive services through real-time monitoring of equipment.
   • We can fix problems before they happen, that positively impacts customer satisfaction when downtime is avoided
2. Unmatched operational efficiency with integrated, automated systems.
   • You will never run out of supplies – our automated proactive supplies management has been perfected
   • Your hardware and software implementations are professionally project managed 
   • Your invoice is simple and is always correct
3. Continuous improvement
   • Fleet and service level reporting for business reviews includes real-time, accurate data to support improvements for your team
4. Guaranteed 99%+ uptime is not only accomplished with great service support
   • OEM supplies and replacement parts dramatically increase the fleet uptime with fewer emergency service calls (OEM toner can reduce emergency service calls by more than 40% which dramatically impacts user downtime)
   • As independent experts, we only work with the most trusted brands with products and supply chains that support responsible sustainability which brings the quality we need to keep your uptime high
5. Changing the way we work with productivity improvement for our clients
   • We build long-term relationships with clients by solving business problems with software. For example, we can implement a super simple, low-cost scan workflow app that would save every employee 15 minutes per week on average; and/or a more complex business process workflow that can automate accounts payable invoice processing saving 40% of the whole departments time

Is your organization world-class, or are you striving to be? Your employees deserve the best. If your business does value your employee’s time because you want to ensure that they are happy and highly productive, you should look to a truly world-class MPS and workflow automation partner.

Sometimes what looks like savings can turn into a hassle. If you are running aftermarket supplies in your print devices, reach out to see how we can help to convert you to OEM. We typically find that we can help our clients make the change to OEM without impacting the total cost of ownership and the monthly operational cost to run the print environment. If you are currently running OEM supplies and are thinking about trying aftermarket supplies to try and save some money, there may be a better way to save! Reach out to talk to one of our MPS experts.

HP OEM supplies provide the confidence you can rely on for everyday printing. HP is committed to the environment by using recycled materials in new cartridges and offering a free recycling program from one of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world. Supplies also meet eco-label emission criteria to help maintain the air quality. Trust is also provided from the packaging to the chips to use supplies that protect your printer and your data. Lastly, peace of mind is provided in knowing that you are using HP OEM supplies.

Consolidating office equipment and vendors while positively impacting sustainability and monthly MPS expenses. Does this sound too good to be true?

1. Happy users are productive users

• • Make it easy – Update and standardize your office printing equipment with the latest functionality
  • Make it safe – Install secure access printing software to enable touchless print release while increasing user efficiency
  • Work with MPS experts – they will help you select the best equipment for your business and balance the equipment locations for your departments

2. Sustainability / Reduce your carbon footprint – Independent MPS experts can bring an unbiased approach to help you select the right equipment that will help with the following:

• • Decrease power consumption
  • Decrease environmental landfill waste
  • Ensure the supply chain of equipment, parts and supplies has a sustainable supply chain 
  • Measure the carbon footprint reduction – If your business is trying to achieve carbon neutrality and sustainability, we can help with current vs. future state reporting to support your organizations reduction goals through the consolidation and upgrade of your office equipment

3. Security – Hackers have been busy and more successful during the pandemic and print devices are often a target in the office.

• • Reduce the risk by selecting office printing equipment that has advanced security capabilities that will stop hackers in their tracks
  • Secure the print device end points with software that can automate security configuration and report on areas of risk
  • Physically secure the equipment by installing secure access software to lock all functions of the print devices, requiring fast simple user authentication to unlock; this provides a full audit trail for print/copy/fax/scan with no more printed pages left unattended

4. Save more than 50%! – As independent MPS experts we can tell you that ALL completed projects to help our clients get back to the office with a better print environment are saving more than 50% of their previous monthly expenses, even if they had previously consolidated the print environment.

• •   It is a new normal, take advantage of this moment in time to make meaningful change that will improve the user experience, sustainability, security while saving money
  • There are more savings with powerful workflow software. WFH (work from home) has changed the way your employees work. Many of the new digital tools they use are more efficient that what they have always done in the office; help them NOT go back to how they worked before through business process automation.

Sometimes what looks like savings can turn into a hassle. If you are running aftermarket supplies in your print devices, reach out to see how we can help to convert you to OEM. We typically find that we can help our clients make the change to OEM without impacting the total cost of ownership and the monthly operational cost to run the print environment. If you are currently running OEM supplies and are thinking about trying aftermarket supplies to try and save some money, there may be a better way to save! Reach out to talk to one of our MPS experts.

HP OEM supplies provide the confidence you can rely on for everyday printing. HP is committed to the environment by using recycled materials in new cartridges and offering a free recycling program from one of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world. Supplies also meet eco-label emission criteria to help maintain the air quality. Trust is also provided from the packaging to the chips to use supplies that protect your printer and your data. Lastly, peace of mind is provided in knowing that you are using HP OEM supplies.

Is it time to get control of the contract management process with Intelligent Workflow Automation? Save money, and time by increasing efficiency and visibility!

In all industries, employees spend far too much time searching, sending, and maintaining contracts. You can stop the endless painful contract shuffle and efficiently manage contracts with precision. The teams of people we work with have struggled with moving the process quickly to meet timelines versus having control over the process to manage risk with the legal team’s input. They have also struggled with visibility of the contract terms, obligations, and expiration times; as well as information silos in their organizations and trying to keep legal language standardized to mitigate risk for the organization. The team needs to be up to date on components that can change like pricing, emerging legal language, and the fluid management of contract extensions and renewal processes.

Digitally transforming the contract management process will bring increased productivity for each person involved. One simple automated system with a standardized process will bring efficiency to the following components of contract management:

• Version tracking
• Contract requests and drafting
• Review & approve from anywhere at anytime
• Compliance & audit preparation
• Expiration and renewal management
• Digital signature integration

Here are the high-level value points of Contract Management automation:

1. Simplify client requests and vendor agreement processing with an easy access forms portal and contract templates
2. An automated, standardized process simplifies each step so users can send contracts to stakeholders for revisions with visibility to prioritize tasks and understand where the next action must take place to keep the process on track
3. Automate the ingestion of contracts through email capture, web forms, scanning, etc. getting all documents in one system for processing
4. Assure compliance and be audit-ready for all contracts with everything in one simple searchable system accessible anywhere, anytime
5. Track contract versions accurately with permissible access

Efficiency is extremely important, but there is also value in having an improved understanding of your organization’s contracts and suppliers. With an automated system, you will have improved visibility so you can negotiate improved terms, and consolidate suppliers to increase discounts by leveraging your buying power. Reach out today to learn more about how we can help with efficiency, accuracy, and give time back to your team.

Although most organizations have had a strategy around digital transformation, most were not yet in execution mode and therefore had a tough time supporting the tough transitions this pandemic has required. We talk to businesses every day who are struggling to close the loop on business processes with automation.

Initially, when everyone had to work remotely with the COVID-19 pandemic, mailrooms moved quickly to ensure recipients of inbound mail and faxes received important documents by scanning these documents to email in pdf image files. While this ensured correspondence was looked after, we all know that email isn’t a digital filing cabinet and shouldn’t be used as one. These documents will continue to increase mailbox sizes and could be lost.

The Intelligent Workflow best in breed solutions that SmartPrint provides can help organizations substantially increase productivity in almost every department of the business. Where there is a business process with documents and people involved, there is an automation opportunity. That said, often people struggle with how and where to get started with automation in their business. The mailroom is a logical place to start a digital transformation strategy.

A mailroom can use scanning and document workflow software to run a digital mail delivery service that will benefit the internal customers (all employees) for the whole organization. Why not kick off the first automation step where documents come into your business?

Top 6 benefits of digitally transforming the mailroom:

• Time savings from no longer maintaining paper documents
• Reduce operational costs by eliminating printing, expensive couriers, and real estate costs required for document storage
• Increase accessibility to all documents with controlled access, anytime from anywhere
• Decrease user wait times for document turnaround
• Improve security and decrease lost and misfiled document from human error
• Simplify processes and improve the end-users experience

A project to transform the mailroom is a quick win that has visible and tangible value for your business. One of the keys to getting started with automation is having a quick win that you build off with more projects across the organization. You can build a better business while using the same workflow platform.

HP Capture and Route is a great example of a digital management tool that can automate the ingestion of content from multiple inputs and flow the content right into automated workflows built in an intelligent workflow software solution. We have had a lot of success with this tool as the front end of a fully integrated business workflow system. With our intelligent workflow solutions, we have multiple options of best in breed platforms and we ensure that all of the applications are agnostic so if there are changes in your environment your workflows are intact for the future.

If you are interested in learning more to see how we can help, reach out for a brief conversation and perhaps a demo.

Does it make sense to sacrifice user uptime, deal with user frustration and degrade your office print quality to save a few bucks?

There is a large difference between OEM and
non-OEM toner cartridges from a quality perspective. 
What’s important to know is that for most printers and MFPs, about 70% of the printing process and technology resides within the toner cartridge itself.  So, when you replace the toner cartridge you are actually replacing about 70% of the printer.  That’s quite the overhaul. It has been a while since we have created a blog post regarding supplies, but with the Covid-19 pandemic, some organizations are making decisions strictly around cost, but they may not have all of the insight that is relevant to the decision of switching.

As MPS (managed print services) experts with over 33 years in business, we have had a significant amount of experience in truly understanding the difference between OEM and non-OEM (remanufactured or illegally cloned) toner supplies for laser printers.  

Why most companies prefer OEM when they have had experience with both OEM and non-OEM:

1. Less downtime – based on industry data of 10 MPS companies across North America, office print devices running OEM toner supplies require as high as 45% less service calls (the average in the sample was 40%). With OEM toner, users experience less downtime as compared with the same device that is not using OEM supplies.
2. Print quality – Supplies that are not OEM are not made to the same specification as OEM because they use aftermarket parts and aftermarket toner. This can cause reduced print quality and toner residue left inside the printer (dirty print engine).  About 40% of non-OEM toner results in greenish blacks,  faded colour output, or other print quality issues.
3. Supply failure – a high percentage of non-OEM supplies fail before all of the toner is used, which impacts the cost for page in a negative way. If you don’t get to use all of the toner, you are paying too much per page.
4. Achieving cartridge yield – OEM supplies are held to stringent regulations and standards that allow the manufacturer to accurately advertise how many pages a user can typically get out of a cartridge.  When using non-OEM toner, you never really know how many pages you’ll be getting.  Based on data SmartPrint has collected, non-OEM cartridges only achieve 70-85% of the original yield.
5. Device longevity – here’s a simple analogy; if you run low grade 87 octane gasoline in a performance car engine that requires 91 octane gasoline, your engine will run rough, have more problems, and will not last as long as the same vehicle that runs the proper fuel. It is the same as a print device that is not running OEM supplies. The trade-off of running the cheaper incorrect fuel, or toner supplies, is more costly repairs, frustrating performance issues, and a shorter life span for the car, or hardware you invested in.
6. Sustainability – there’s a misconception that non-OEM cartridges can be better for the environment.  The reality is that OEMs, like HP, have free cartridge return programs that allow used cartridges to be responsibly recycled and diverted from the landfill.  Industry statistics estimate that about 90% of non-OEM cartridges end up in the landfill after a single-use.

Sometimes what looks like savings can turn into a hassle. If you are running aftermarket supplies in your print devices, reach out to see how we can help to convert you to OEM. We typically find that we can help our clients make the change to OEM without impacting the total cost of ownership and the monthly operational cost to run the print environment. If you are currently running OEM supplies and are thinking about trying aftermarket supplies to try and save some money, there may be a better way to save! Reach out to talk to one of our MPS experts.

HP OEM supplies provide the confidence you can rely on for everyday printing. HP is committed to the environment by using recycled materials in new cartridges and offering a free recycling programs from one of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world. Supplies also meet eco-label emission criteria to help maintain the air quality. Trust is also provided from the packaging to the chips to use supplies that protect your printer and your data. Lastly, peace of mind is provided in knowing that you are using HP OEM supplies.

HR teams spend hours each day searching for documents, creating employee content, and working with the company’s departments to support and manage all of the HR functions. Staying on top of the process of onboarding new employees is extremely challenging. There are many important steps that require organization and processing of documents as well as multiple approvals and signatures. The continuous follow-up and chasing that is required to stay on top of new employee onboarding can be highly stressful. Many HR professionals share that they just cannot keep up with the workload.

Some of the biggest challenges we hear about are:

• Challenges with effectively onboarding new employees
• Organization issues and effective collaboration with so many things on the go
• Communication chaos – chasing people to keep HR processes moving
• Recruitment processes that are badly managed by hiring managers
• Finding suitable candidates
• Constantly searching for documents
• Regulatory compliance
• Confidentiality of sensitive employee documents

Why should an organization invest in digitally transforming their  HR department? 

Companies that focus and invest in digital transformation to improve the wide-ranging HR processes will create a competitive advantage and win the war on talent in their sector. Intelligent workflow solutions that can move all things HR to digitally automated processes will completely simplify the internal and external interactions delivering a seamless, quick, and positive experience for the top talent you attract. 

Here are some of the HR functions and processes you can expect to improve and automate with intelligent workflow solutions:

• New employee onboarding process – manage the process with a system with standardized documentation
• Hiring process – HR and hiring teams can route, interview and approve new hires within one integrated system
• Employee termination process – making sure all components of the process are handled correctly and security measures are taken to disable employee access with precise timelines
• Compliance employee record management – ensure security measures are in place to protect information. Benefits, pension, employee data, work forms, company information, etc.
• No more chasing – an intelligent workflow system for HR can integrate to your existing HR system and enable the HR Professional to manage the HR processes with visibility to where the workflow has bottlenecks, pinpointing the barriers to efficiency

Even if you have taken steps towards digital transformation and setup an HR module from your company’s financial software package, intelligent workflow solutions can complement and integrate with no code or scripting. Digitally transforming your HR department will enable your team to use their skills, knowledge, and training effectively rather than spending time on the mundane repetitive tasks of chasing people and searching for documents.  Another significant benefit is enabling the HR executive to have real-time visibility and reporting to understand where the challenges and bottlenecks are in all of the processes, which will support continuous improvement efforts.

The best strategy for organizations that want to move to digital transformation in HR, is to select an independent expert partner to work with and start with a high priority HR process that will have a big impact on the team’s efficiency. With a successful first project, you can continue to tackle the automation of more HR processes to build a world-class, efficient department that can win the war on talent. 

This is much easier and less expensive than it may sound! There are no capital dollars to invest with cloud workflow software and ROI is significant with a payback period in a few months. It is time to ready your business for the future. If you are interested in staying with your competition, or potentially getting ahead and creating competitive advantage, reach out for a brief conversation and perhaps a demo to see if we can help.

Companies that focus and invest in digital transformation will create a competitive advantage for their businesses. Most departments in your business can have significant increases in productivity by implementing intelligent workflow solutions that automate manual repetitive tasks and seamlessly incorporate and improve existing business processes to accomplish digital transformation. 

Your AP department is a great place to start. Here’s what you can expect as a project outcome.

• Efficiency gains of more than  50%
• Quick ROI with payback on your investment in less than 3 months
• Increased accuracy, no errors moving forward
• Rapid deployment of an intuitive, simple system requiring minimal training (typically a 1 to 2 week project)
• Visibility through reporting and analysis
• Audits can be completed in minutes instead of weeks

Even if you have taken steps towards digital transformation and setup an AP module from your financial software package, intelligent workflow solutions can complement and integrate with no code or scripting. You can dramatically increase your AP team’s productivity with machine learning software that can automate the time consuming, error-prone tasks of data entry, and processing that an AP clerk performs. The efficiency gains come from freeing up the AP clerk’s time to focus on exceptions, analysis, and managing the related processes. It puts the clerk in a position to use their knowledge rather than spending time on the mundane repetitive task of data entry. We have implemented solutions that are successfully automating the AP process for 95% of an organization’s invoices while speeding the processing and accuracy of the other 5%.

One step at a time for a digital transformation move

The best strategy for organizations that want to move to digital transformation, is to select an independent expert partner to work with and start with one department that can realize a significant ROI and successful project. Step one of our approach is to solve a high priority business problem successfully and expand across all departments in a step by step, win by win process. A full solution for AP should include fully automated ingestion and data entry from any form of invoice (email attachment, hardcopy scan, web form upload, etc.) as well as an integrated, automated workflow for the approval process that connects the silos in your business.

Here are some details of Accounts Payable solution components and connections.

1. A machine learning solution to automate the ingestion of invoices integrated into the existing financial purchase order and invoice system. We have worked with home-grown legacy systems, off the shelf financial packages, or sophisticated Enterprise Resource Planning software.
2. An intelligent workflow system that can integrate into the ingestion system as well as act as a repository and analysis tool while integrating to your company email and other systems to support and automate the approval and exception processes.
3. Other connections often supported are flowing invoices or links to the invoices to your financial system; connecting to CRM systems to enable future invoice and PO lookups for finance, customer service, sales, and other departments; connecting to existing document management systems that may be used as the repository of final documents. There are many other opportunities to connect and make your workflow intelligent and automated.
4. Here’s the bonus:  the above solutions we implement can be used for digital transformation and automation of workflow across all other departments. The solutions we use are best in breed and can basically integrate with anything while acting as the workflow overlay and connector to all of your systems. 

This is much easier than it sounds! It is time to ready your business for the future. If you are interested in catching up to your competition, or potentially getting ahead and creating a competitive advantage by supporting your clients and supply chain more efficiently and effectively, reach out for a brief conversation and perhaps a demo to see if we can help.

Yes, office print volumes are shrinking; however, the value of Managed Print Services (MPS) is alive and well. With the right plan, hard cost and IT time savings are always delivered.

Most organizations have had to transition to virtual home office teams to support the workplace restrictions protecting the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. A nimble independent MPS partner can help you support print and scan home office user requirements while saving money for your business by leveraging your overall MPS spend and pricing programs with hardware manufacturers and by recommending the right equipment.

I am ecstatic to see that our team is active with new clients helping them to transition to a right-sized fleet of equipment in their offices, that incorporate plans for supporting home office workers while providing a lot of savings. Typically 30%-50% saving over their previous spend, and we can upgrade equipment where it is required with no capital outlay. Although people are printing less over time, there is significant value in consolidating vendors to an independent expert in MPS.

5 misconceptions of Managed Print Services

• Some organizations  think they don’t print very much, they need fewer print devices and MPS is not necessary
• The  MPS service must be more expensive than self-supporting
• They  will be forced to prematurely upgrade hardware that is working fine
• They are already getting MPS from a copier dealer or a device manufacturer
• An MPS company will not help them print less

I have news for you, 99.9% of the time we can reduce costs, give time back to the IT department so they can focus on important projects or support, keep your quality equipment longer and help you print less through implementing solutions to support digital transformation for the future. For all companies, hard cost savings is key right now and with SmartPrint’s ability to provide rapid, virtual, expert fleet recommendations we can make your organization more efficient and support all user requirements, even with complete equipment upgrades and still save money for you in the first month of the program. 

We have had great success implementing a balance of best in breed HP large copier and smaller printer MFP units to reduce the total cost of ownership and decrease security risk.

With dramatic change happening in the office and home office environments it is a great time to reach out for a rapid assessment to see if we can help.

In this blog, we discuss how organizations can overcome the workflow challenges with remote workers and the future of business workflow in the new normal.

With the recent Covid-19 crisis, it appears that the new normal for many organizations will be to have a large percentage of their team working from home offices. Many organizations are struggling with disconnects in business processes given that remote teams are not able to gain access to stored paper documents and cannot complete business processes that are not online or have not yet been digitally enabled or transformed.

In a recent article in The Globe and Mail   “…Shopify said most of its 5,000-plus staff would continue to work from home while it also adjusts its workflow and office-space needs.” It can be seen that technology companies are leading the charge, but even high-tech firms need to change their workflow to support efficient processes for remote workers.

Adjusting to the new normal

It can become very complicated for each department to figure out how to get work done when they are not together in one place in this new normal. In the past, a customer service person could go to a filing cabinet and access a proof of delivery document to help a client with an inventory inquiry; or, a manager could approve the purchase of IT equipment for an employee in a live conversation or by email. In the new normal you need audit trails and digital access for approvals. Most requests to simplify departmental workflow have fallen on the IT department to find a solution. Often IT ends up trying to extend modules of existing software applications and potentially writing code for integration to try and patch together workflow with multiple systems. It can be much easier, much less expensive, and take a lot less time.

The future of business workflow

A simple purpose-built system that leverages your existing core business software acts as an overlay to connect all the dots to enable digital, automated workflow. This is the future of business workflow. We have many clients that are ahead of the curve because they worked with us to digitally transform workflow in their departments like finance, customer service, HR, operations, sales, and more. In many cases, they wanted to simply make their business more efficient and improve their customer experience. Now is the time to move forward with digital transformation so that your organization can thrive in the future. It is time to change the way we work.

5 Key reasons why implementing intelligent workflow solutions to achieve digital transformation is easier than you think.

1. Low code, or no code – cloud-based software can be implemented with little to no coding or scripting and can connect to your existing systems (ERP, HR, CRM, Supply Chain, Document Management or cloud storage, etc.)
2. Rapid deployment – from the assessment phase to fully implemented in as little as 2 weeks
3. No capital investment with an  immediate ROI 
4. Workflow solution access, anywhere, anytime and from any device
5. Limited involvement from your IT team – implementation of automated workflow systems requires access and collaboration with IT, but we do 95% of the work

HP Capture and Route is a great example of a digital management tool that can automate the ingestion of content from multiple inputs and flow the content right into automated workflows built in an intelligent workflow software solution. We have had a lot of success with this tool as the front end of a fully integrated business workflow system. With our intelligent workflow solutions, we have multiple options of best in breed platforms and we ensure that all of the applications are agnostic so if there are changes in your environment your workflows are intact for the future.

For more information, please contact us.