Unmanaged Print = Unmanaged Expense
The vast majority of companies today have no idea what they are spending on office printing. Office printing costs are the largest unmanaged expense in business today. Overall printing costs are difficult to quantify, since the cost of supplies, equipment and support are often buried in different cost centers across the organization.
According to industry experts, office printing costs are significant and growing:
“The average employee prints 12,000 pages annually and can cost a business as much as $1,000 a person in toner.” Canon
In addition to direct printing costs, IT/help desk, support and service costs can be staggering, if correctly factored in:
“As much as 50 percent of all help-desk calls are printer related.” Xerox
Given how massive an expense office printing can be for an organization, why are office print environments and related costs typically left unmanaged?
Why is Print Unmanaged?
Typically, decisions pertaining to printers are made in “silos”:
- Office services handles the copiers.
- Procurement is responsible for printing supplies.
- IT buys the printers and is in charge of supporting the printer fleet.
- Workflow for scanning and paper processes are typically defined by the user.
Different departments all have a piece of the process but no single department is 100% responsible for the organization’s print environment and budget.
By pro-actively managing the print environment, organizations can realize significant cost savings.