Next generation Managed Print Services

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1 Next generation Managed Print Services Managed Print Services (MPS) are evolving from focusing on printers to people and workflows. Introduction What does a next generation MPS look like? Managed Print Services (MPS) are evolving from focusing on printers to people and workflows. Today, every IT leader is being asked to deliver more for less, removing costs without affecting performance. However, print estates are often one of the last areas of unsecured spending, frequently overlooked due to a limited awareness of the true cost and a lack of clear ownership. But over the years Managed Print Services (MPS) have increasingly gained momentum, with organisations looking to take control of their printing and imaging environments, drive down costs and management hassle with centrally managed, networked and integrated print solutions. But now MPS are extending beyond the typical enterprise print environment. Read on to find out about the varied components that make up a traditional versus next generation MPS and how they can potentially transform your business: 1. Next generation MPS: From print costs to productivity. 2. What s driving the evolution in MPS? 3. What new elements make up a next generation MPS?

2 1. Next generation MPS: From print costs to productivity Whilst many organisations may be at the early stages of their MPS journey, next generation MPS solutions are starting to offer tangible business and productivity benefits beyond first generation solutions, which focused more on cost control and fleet optimisation. Next generation Managed Print Services aim to help enterprises to use their information more effectively and transform their business processes. This not only helps them drive down print costs but also helps them to actually print less and achieve more. This is delivered through a range of technology, services and products that support enterprise initiatives around productivity, security and supporting your people in new ways of working. These can include: Tackling the document output needs of mobile and remote workers Business process automation and optimisation Variable data printing Secure and intelligent document storage, capture, retrieval and workflow solutions. This high-level guide will help boost your understanding of what to look for and how to evolve your print estate and workflows with next generation MPS. What is a typical Managed Print Service today? So what exactly do traditional Managed Print Services look like today? Analysts Quocirca define a managed print service as the use of an external provider to assess, optimise and continuously manage an organisation s document output environment in order to lower costs and improve productivity and efficiency while reducing risk.* *Quo Circa, Managed Print Services Landscape, 2014 The printing, scanning, faxing, processing and storage of documents are still fundamental work requirements. Despite the constant evolution of technology, we are no closer to the paperless office becoming a reality There will always be a requirement for certain hardcopy documents such as contracts, legal documentation, presentations or receipts. Additionally, many people simply prefer to print and read tangible documents, rather than stare at a computer screen all of the time. Because of this, printing and imaging estates are considered by many to be the cost of doing business, but with little executive supervision many organisations have turned to specialist MPS providers to design, deploy and manage a solution. According to analysts printing costs can actually account for up to 3% of an organisation s total annual revenue so an increased focus on analysing and reducing cost throughout the business has seen previously disregarded areas, such as printing, being given increased scrutiny.

3 The current generation of MPS enable organisations to expose the hidden costs of printing and processing documentation and unlock a range of other benefits. But now the next generation promise to move MPS beyond optimisation of the printing environment to services that optimise customers document work processes with enhanced security in mobile and cloud environments. What do traditional Managed Print Services consist of? Delivered by print specialists, traditional MPS form a tailored solution which can incorporate the management and support of your print hardware environment, print software and applications including electronic document management and workflow solutions. The key components of MPS include: Hardware This can include printers, faxes, copiers, scanners or multifunctional devices that incorporate some (or all) of those functions. MPS aim to consolidate existing sprawling print estates and refresh aging legacy technology with more efficient, reliable, eco-friendly machines. Software Vendors and manufacturers have developed a range of software to help companies manage their print and document environments and improve their document processes. A range of applications integrate with your print and imaging estate to enhance effectiveness or add additional functionality and services. These can include: Print Management Software to control and continuously audit the print environment Document creation variable data printing, document collaboration and conversion Document management software document archive, retrieval and workflow Integration third party integration for seamless user interaction between device, documentation and back office systems Print room managing the in-house print room Remote monitoring to provide proactive alerting and device monitoring capabilities Support services This can include the day-to-day technical or administrative support of end-users, service and maintenance both remote and on-site, supply of devices and consumables as well as billing and reporting.

4 2. What s driving the evolution in MPS? The time and expense of managing large and unwieldy legacy print estates is a significant driver for organisations to adopt an MPS model. Many organisations have a print estate that has been acquired and added to over time, with printers attached either on or off the network across many locations. Due to the low unit cost for lower end devices, many purchasing decisions are made at departmental or individual, rather than enterprise level. This can lead to a surplus of personal light weight or desktop printers, while higher performance, lower cost communal printers are underutilised. This is not only an inefficient and costly manner to deploy a printing fleet, it s a heavy support burden for IT, as well as making a significant environmental impact due to the waste (paper and defunct equipment), power consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Traditional MPS can help consolidate and optimise these legacy estates, relieving IT of the burden of supporting your printers with a single partner responsible for owning the print estate and defining and delivering an overall print strategy. Today s MPS focus on: Print device consolidation and optimisation Secure access to devices and confidential printing Visibility of device activity Environmental gains - reducing carbon footprint etc A comprehensive support. But MPS are moving from cost cutting to driving innovation A lack of visibility and understanding over the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of printing drove the initial adoption of MPS in many organisations. But this total cost of printing is more than just hardware and paper; it includes a number of elements which make up the true cost: Device utilisation and environmental impacts IT overhead i.e. set-up, support and integration Cost of consumables (paper, ink, power etc.) and equipment Print activities and lost user productivity Outsourced or variable data printing from back office systems (invoices, delivery notes etc.) Paper based business processes and workflows Print governance and user accountability Mobility enablement and remote working

5 Office environments and working practices are changing dramatically, with the increasing adoption of mobile working and cloud services in particular. This has led to the nature of MPS also changing, moving from focusing on costs to increasing productivity essentially the next generation of MPS. As the MPS market gains maturity, organisations moving beyond first generation engagements have often reached the end of their cost-cutting phase and are now looking for innovation to drive more business value. * * Quo Circa, MPS 2014 Summary Final June 2014 Although cost control remains an essential priority, next generation MPS services now go beyond office printing to encompass the print room, business processes and the IT infrastructure to drive wider productivity and business process improvements. Next generation MPS provide an environment where users can securely input, obtain or output information when and wherever needed, in whatever format it s needed. Next generation MPS tackle more challenges businesses face around print and information flow including: Mobile worker printing Embracing cloud services Secure document storage and workflows Variable data printing Document capture Business process optimisation. Consequently many IT leaders are looking for next generation MPS providers to become true innovation partners and help them beyond optimising their devices and print costs instead providing transformational solutions that help streamline workflow and enhance productivity.

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7 3. What new elements make up a next generation MPS? Document capture Document Capture is an integral element of a next generation MPS solution in the era of digital business. It involves using high speed, efficient scanning devices and software to automatically capture content using accurate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engines making it as accessible as data. Whether you re on-the-go running a small business, or responsible for a large corporate organisation with thousands of employees seamless and rapid document capture can make you more productive and efficient. There has been a movement over the last few years to implement scanning and capture using a distributed approach, where scanners of different types and locations feed into a common capture system, which then presents a unified connection to downstream processes. This is particularly useful for MFDs (multi-functional devices) within the main office, but also at branch offices. In next generation MPS the technology includes field-based and mobile devices, as well as handling multiple-electronic file formats such as PDFs, faxes and s. Scanning and capture can improve the speed of response significantly to customers, suppliers, or staff by six times or more a dramatic improvement in a world where poor service will be mercilessly highlighted and spread in minutes in a tweet or Facebook post. Secure storage and workflow Despite the rise of the digital business, many organisations still depend on some analogue methods of document storage. While there will always be the requirement for some paper documentation (in conventional filing cabinets), more and more information is electronic. And storing your information electronically (probably on network drives or scattered across laptops) can result in a vast sea of information, where discovering the data you need quickly and efficiently can be a challenge. The next generation MPS will help you to discover information or content more efficiently and cost effectively. Effective document management can transform the way you work, integrating with your existing business applications (such as Microsoft Office) as a core part of your processes. Documents can be imported electronically from applications and s, or paper documents rapidly scanned in. Once within the safety of the document management system documents can be routed between users, processed, classified, audited and securely stored. With workflow, documents can be automatically routed between departments and authorisers to handle different process stages, for example review, approval, escalation based on content or simply notification. And you can work with your MPS provider to ensure that these processes are designed to run in parallel or in series, and can transfer bundles of data as easily as single documents.

8 Business Process Optimisation MPS are moving beyond the realms of hardware consolidation to encompass a much broader strategy to drive business efficiency around paper-dependent processes. Next generation MPS solutions reduce or eliminate wasteful printing and better integrate document workflows into your business. Typical examples can include a digital mailroom where incoming mail is automatically scanned, stored and distributed to the relevant people. Or by bringing your invoice processing into your MPS, so your invoice receipt, validation and approval workflows are handled automatically, allowing you to process invoices up to 50% faster. And by tackling and automating manual processes you can free up the time of your most valuable asset your people. Mobile working Mobile devices are transforming business productivity. For many, the workplace is no longer simply a traditional office; employees are now accessing applications, data, and services from multiple devices, wherever they are, every day. With a highly mobile workforce, you need to ensure that your people have the same access to corporate applications as they would from the desktop, while protecting sensitive data. The desktop and the mobile experience are coming closer together, but printing is one area where mobility is still lagging behind. Due to a diversity of mobile platforms, printers and MFDs, mobile printing in traditional print environments can be cumbersome, inflexible and a far from intuitive mobile print experience. In next generation MPS solutions mobile printing needs to be as simple as desktop printing IT must extend its print infrastructure to the mobile worker, enabling them to submit a print job from any mobile device to any printer, securely and reliably. This gives your people more flexibility and convenience to print on the move. And as part of a next generation MPS mobile printing must be centrally managed, secure and standardised. The cloud There are an increasing number of cloud based services and applications being rolled out in most enterprises and next generation MPS are also looking to embrace the cost efficiency and flexibility of the cloud. Cloud based solutions (typically SaaS) such as online Electronic Document Management (EDM) will become an integral component of many MPS. These solutions are ideal for organisations that prefer not to invest in their own IT infrastructure, along with all the inherent and ongoing costs of managing and maintaining it.

9 By moving your EDM online and into the cloud, all of your information, regardless of the format, is remotely stored in a data centre. This means you can retain all the benefits of EDM (saved time looking for documents, better security and audit trails, reduced paper work and storage requirements) while taking advantage of additional flexibility accessing documents from wherever you are. Variable Data Printing Business documents play a central role in the communications between organizations and their clients. Whether it s invoices, statements, financial reports; every document sent to your customer is an opportunity for new business. With the right technology and a next generation MPS, you can create business documents and customer communications that help you develop, maintain and grow your business. For example, in one print run you can customise the content and images in a direct mailshot to target customers in different geographic areas or even in different languages. You can also use different images and colours to test which gets a greater response from your audience. Print Room For organisations managing a print room in-house or using a separate outsourced provider, there are significant benefits to be gained by using a single MPS provider for both the office and the print room. Quocirca s research reveals that 23% of organisations use a single MPS provider for both environments, with an additional 45% indicating that they would be very interested. About Maintel We help our customers to transform a business expense into a business benefit Our expert consultants will work with you to understand your print and document input, output and processing needs and create a strategy to fit. Then we ll help to implement and support your solution. Our document management solutions include: Next generation Managed Print Services (MPS) Document storage and management Business process improvement Support and maintenance. If you want to find out more about transforming your print environment and document processes get in touch on +44(0) or visit maintel.co.uk