This post brought to you by HP MPS. The content and opinions expressed below are that of 404 Tech Support.
Thanks to some very robust and reliable printers in the HP Laserjet line, I have a very positive outlook of HP when it comes to printers. When it came to learning about HP’s Managed Printing Services, it seems like a no-brainer.
When you think of managed printing services, you might think enterprise-level but HP’s MPS actually scales so that it can also perform quite effectively for businesses between 150-1000 employees. These businesses may actually benefit more from partnering with HP by seeing greater gains.
How does HP MPS benefit your organization?
HP provides the hardware, software, and services to control printing and manage it better than before. This also removes the load from your internal IT and outsources it to a specialist. Your IT person most likely has enough to do without worrying about replacing toner cartridges.
HP’s solution is more efficient by predicting your environment’s needs, optimizing printer usage, and adding security features to prevent confidential print jobs from sitting unattended or walking off with the previous print job. HP’s Managed Print Services provides a managed workflow for printing while controlling operating costs and enforcing security.
HP states that it can save up to 30% on office printing. Obviously this depends on your environment but industry analysts state that having a managed print service typically saves up to 30%. HP can help optimize a document workflow and related business processes through planning workshops, HP Imaging and Printing Security center, and a hands-on security advisory service. HP increases efficiency and reduces operating costs by enabling monitoring of the printing environment. By having a dedicated service, this can also reduce downtime and therefore increase employee productivity in the case that a printer is unavailable.
The proof is in the pudding!
To understand how HP might find ways to save money and reduce downtime, you can run a tool that HP provides. The Managed Print Analysis (MPA) tool is able to asses your printing environment for efficiency. A snapshot of the environment is gathered by the customer answering some questions to gauge the size and needs of the environment. The recommendations will then be summarized into a nice little report that will detail some of your inefficiencies and areas for improvement.
Run the free MPA Tool by answering a few questions to establish your industry, size your environment, and determine your printing needs as well as features currently available. The last step is to provide your contact information and then you may view the results. A screenshot of the first page of the report is below. You can see the full sample report as a PDF from the HP Managed Print Analysis page. This can highlight areas of improvement and how you compare to averages for your industry.
Secure printing is an important feature to have to control your data and to be able to make things more efficient. At one of my previous jobs, we wanted to evolve our printing from personal printers on too many desks to centralized office or floor printers. This would allow us to purchase higher quality printers (some of those Laserjets I mentioned earlier) that were more durable and printed more pages per minute. One sticking point that we encountered was the managers of the department being concerned about printing something confidential or regarding personnel and that document just sitting there until they could pick it up. By using secure printing, you could enter a PIN code when you’re at the printer and have your job print at that time. Even newer options include using fobs and other means of verifying your identity quickly. HP’s Managed Print Services utilize these secure print features and fold it into the document workflow so end-users are aware of their capabilities.
Bringing in managed print services can reduce operational costs and frustration with printers. Centralized printers can reduce energy usage and by having HP Managed Print Services, you will also be saving the energy of your IT personnel so that they can work on their projects. If you would like to learn more, visit the HP MPS site.
Images credit to HP.