iQ Special Report: Finding Hidden Savings

Print has been sniffed at for many years as one of IT’s poor relations, but organisations underestimate its impact on operational costs – and potential savings – at their peril if they don’t want to end up significantly poorer themselves.

OK, so printers perform an important function and, paperless office notwithstanding, the place just wouldn’t be the same without the good old colour laser in the corner. But let’s face it, printing isn’t exactly glamorous or interesting is it? Why should it be? The sum that the average enterprise spends on printing every year only amounts to between 1 and 3% of its annual revenues. It’s barely worth even thinking about.

Hang on a minute. What were those figures again? 3% of annual revenues? Really? That can’t be right. Can it? Well, according to Gartner it is, and others put the figure as high as 4 or even 5%. And oh yes, IDC reckons that 67% – more than two thirds – of enterprises can’t or don’t quantify their print spend. Ears pricked? Curiosity piqued? Then we’ll begin.

“The cost of general printing in a business cannot be underestimated and the bigger the organisation, the harder it is to keep track of print costs and keep them down”, nods Chas Moloney, Marketing Director at Ricoh UK. “Factor in the cost of printers themselves, paper, and toner, as well as the expense of disposing of waste, and it is clear that a fleet of printers
constitutes a considerable drain on resources if not properly managed.”

As such, many print sector vendors are now at pains to help companies rein in and better manage their print practices and costs. Indeed one manufacturer, Lexmark, has even taken an ostensibly anti-printing stance; quite literally extending a less is more philosophy as far as its slogan. “Print Less. Save More.”

As Raj Meghani, Head of Strategic Development at the company puts it, it’s all about ‘‘Letting Paper Go.’’ And the first step in reducing the burden, she says, is to take a good hard look at your print practices and your print fleet from the ground up. It’s vital to find out what is being printed, by whom, on how many devices, how often and how much it costs, agrees Tracey Rawling Church, marketing director at Kyocera Mita.

For instance, she says, some of the measures that are in place to supposedly cut wastage may be, directly or indirectly, the very cause of that over-consumption – printing off emails for instance. Many people think that making sure the paper goes in the recycling tray once they’ve read their messages mitigates their use of resources, but it doesn’t, and it completely misses a much wider point.

The easiest way to get a suitably accurate handle on usage is via a dedicated print management solution, which will make such data accessible in a format that can be easily manipulated and analysed. Once in place, says Meghani, this will allow the business – often for the first time – to build user profiles, track usage, monitor consumables and so on to get a clear picture of exactly how its print resources are being used.

Print management also delivers a clear view of the individual printers in the fleet, giving management visibility over all network-connected print devices and the number of documents being printed on each. This often leads to the replacement of outdated personal, single-function desktop devices with multi function devices (MFDs). “This ability to identify exactly what devices they actually have and to reveal additions to the network at a stroke can come as a real shock to some companies”, says Rawling Church.

“Armed with such information, companies can set about optimising their print volumes and cutting back on costs. Particular printing costs can then be allocated to specific cost centres, departments, teams, and even individual users –
so everyone can be made properly aware of and directly accountable for what they print.”

Moloney concurs: “By putting print management policies in place, and by simply taking a more active interest in the way printers are used and how they’re procured, the cost of managing print infrastructure can be significantly reduced. As well as decreasing the volume of paper required for printing, a more holistic approach can also help to cut costs. This can be achieved by looking at the procurement process for the printers themselves.”

Larger MFDs can be more cost effective for many print jobs, he says, while fewer desktop printers will mean fewer consumables being put through employee expense accounts. Other economies of scale can be brought into play via tactics such as acquiring your entire print fleet from a single supplier. Law firm Shepherd & Wedderburn for example, replaced 100 desktop printers in its Edinburgh office with 23 MFDs, cutting its per page printing costs by around 50%.

As Rawling Church pointed out previously, even where replacing an entire print fleet isn’t viable, it is still possible to save money by actively monitoring the printers themselves. Ricoh, for example, has launched its @Remote solution – a software package that allows management to monitor networked devices and collate data on usage and faults –
which help ensure the print fleet is being used in the most efficient way possible. If a printer’s usage doesn’t justify its place in the business it can be disposed of, reducing both consumable and electricity overheads.

“Additional software from companies such as Equitrac can provide further data on usage to ensure devices are being utilised for the tasks for which they are the most efficient”, says Moloney. “For example printing only in full colour and not mono documents on colour MFDs.” It is, however, vital to reinforce any print rationalisation strategy by continually challenging and changing ingrained user habits and perceptions – by banning email printing other than in exceptional
circumstances for instance; by encouraging users to think before they print and to print in mono when it is unavoidable.
Emails often comprise one page of relevant information and four or five pages of filler. People should be educated and encouraged to select and print out only what is pertinent.

Put simply however, says Moloney, the best way to reduce print overheads is to think and act for the long term. “While the basic steps may reduce waste and have a slight impact on overheads, these are not sustainable solutions. Print overheads will start to creep up again and control will be lost as people forget to follow guidelines or as printers are added
locally one at a time. Longer term solutions are needed in order to ensure that print overheads are kept to a minimum.”

Only by keeping a close eye on how printers are used on an ongoing, iterative basis can maximum efficiency be achieved, he says. No, print really isn’t glamorous. But take your eyes off it and it could cost you a pretty penny.

Skint on Print?

A few little-known facts and figures about common print practices:

• More than two thirds of enterprises (67%) don’t know how much they are spending on printing (IDC)
• Enterprises currently spend between £300 and £1,000 per employee (Gartner)
• The cost of producing paper documents typically represents between 1 and 3% of an enterprise’s revenues (Gartner)...
• ... perhaps even as much as 4% according to some sources...
• ... and typically represents between 5% and 15% of a business’s expenditure
• The ‘average’ employee prints 700 pages per month (Ipsos)...
• ... consuming between 50 and 70Kg of paper by the end of the year (Lexmark)
• At least 20% (one page in five) of printed matter is placed immediately in the bin without ever being read (Ipsos)
• An effective print strategy can cut print costs by as much as 40% (IDC)
• 53% of British workers admit to having printed the same document several times by mistake; and almost one in ten (8%) to printing emails before they’ve read them (Fujitsu Siemens)

Shepherd & Wedderburn lays down the law with new print strategy

Law firm Shepherd & Wedderburn reduced its print volumes by around 40% by introducing Multi-Function Devices (MFDs) with electronic content management software, which allow the firm to scan important documents and store them electronically. This reduces overheads on two fronts.

Firstly, instead of printing out every single email for auditing purposes, print volumes have been drastically reduced because all important email correspondence can be archived to the document management system.

Secondly, documents do not need to be physically archived, meaning few resources need to be allocated to storage space. In this way, print and storage overheads were significantly reduced simply by changing the way that hard copies of documents are handled and the way in which printers are used.

The optimum print less output strategy should:

• Default to duplex (double-sided) printing
• Use high-yield cartridges
• Network all devices
• Measure down to cost-centre level
• Control consumables
• Improve workflows
• Continuously work towards improving all of the above