A common question throughout organisations is how to reduce your printing costs. Often, this goes unanswered and printing costs can escalate quickly and become a problem. According to The Gartner Group, businesses spend up to 3% of their annual turnover on printing. Thankfully there are some options on how to reduce your printing costs in your office.
Limit the use of colour
Quite simply – colour is typically ten times the cost of printing black only (mono printing). So, whilst a colourful document often looks prettier, it really isn’t necessary for many documents we print. Even when you print an email, often a website address or email address within the document is hyperlinked and automatically displays in blue – this means you are printing the whole document in colour. Educating your employees on the impact mono versus colour printing has on the bottom line can also be helpful. Additionally, you can limit the number of colour printers available – if any. Administrator functions on multi-functional devices can also help to restrict colour settings on an individual user basis.
Be warned however, by simply setting a printer default or administrative controls, users can still find “work-arounds” for this solution. Measuring individuals print behaviours and habits across different applications can identify opportunities for setting printing rules using targeted print software (contact us for more information).
Reduce desktop printers
Desktop printers are well known for being inexpensive to purchase, but they are also incredibly costly to run. By switching from a series of desktop printers to a multi-functional printer, you are sure to make savings on your business printing costs. By acquiring a multi-functional office printer, you can secure a service contract with the machine, which can save on toner costs and avoid the worry about repairs or maintenance as you would with a desktop printer.
Limit waste
It is very common to find print-outs left on or near the printer that have either been misplaced or simply forgotten. More often than not, bins are next to printers filled with print outs, not just because of errors on the printing, but because they have never been collected. Many MFD’s feature a mailbox system which stores print jobs until the user authenticates the job when they go to the machine which can be done using your staff security card used to access your office. The user can then choose to go-ahead with the print job or delete it. This is often very handy when you realise you haven’t set the margins correctly or find a typing error after you have already hit print! Whilst forgotten or incorrect printing can be reduced, so too can the number of pieces of paper used by simply using duplex or double-sided printing and reducing your paper cost.
Managed print service
If you already have multi-functional printers or photocopiers but still need to reduce printing costs, a managed print service could be an ideal solution. Print management looks at the needs of your entire organisation and identifies opportunities to reduce costs through a number of options including hardware and software management. It was recently reported that 52% of businesses aren’t actually aware of how much they are spending on printing. An independent view of this can be both enlightening and cost saving, not to mention environmentally friendly!
Reduce power consumption
Every minute of every working hour of every working day, your printer is consuming power. When you add up all that power use for each printer in your office, the amount of energy your office printers are using is most likely much more than you would have thought! Check to see whether your office printer is energy efficient, and look at power saving options like timer switches so that the printer goes off overnight and on weekends.