What Are Managed Print Services?

There’s no denying that printing is one of the most important functions of any business. The distribution of monthly newsletters, daily menus, mail advertisements and client files are just a few examples of how businesses rely on printers to complete tasks. However, as such an essential component of daily operations, a problem presents itself — if that printer stops working, you suddenly have to deal with an array of issues.

Every business approaches printing differently. Having a reliable solution for your printing needs can take the stress out of the printing process so you can print your documents the moment you need them, moving on to the next task on your list quickly. While you can handle every aspect of your printing operations in-house, you may want to consider a different solution — managed print service.

What Are Printing Services? How Managed Print Solutions Compare to Other Types

If you’re unfamiliar with the topic of business printing solutions, you may be looking for a managed print service definition. The best way to understand is by comparing it to the other printing options that are available to your business. Here are the three main printing options:

Retail Printing Equipment

When buying retail printing equipment, you decide the specifics. This includes how many printers, copiers, scanners and multifunction devices you need in the brand or brands of your choice. Additionally, you determine where to put each device in your building, replenish your own supplies and perform your own troubleshooting and repairing when malfunctions occur. It’s the same as purchasing a printer for your home.

As far as reliability, you’re at the mercy of the devices you choose. Unfortunately, electronics break all the time, and most retail warranties lack the coverage and length of time you need to feel true peace of mind about your purchase. With retail printing equipment, you gain more control at the expense of guaranteed reliability and dependability.

Commercial Printing Services

As the name suggests, commercial printing services exist to meet a variety of printing needs for businesses and local customers. In this type of print solution, you’ll send or bring your print projects to the commercial printer, and they’ll use their machines to print your documents. Though it can be expensive, commercial printing comes with the benefit of not having to buy your own printing equipment and maintain it within your organization.

Another factor to consider with commercial printing is that you may have to adjust your timeline to account for the commercial printing company’s other customers. In certain circumstances, you may have to pay more for expedited printing. While it could be convenient to outsource all of your printing needs to a commercial printer, you may end up wishing you had more control over how your business prints its documents.

Managed Print Services

Also known as MPS or MPS service, a managed print service is the best of both worlds and then some. In this type of printing service, you’ll partner with a professional print provider that acts as your personal expert regarding print management and environment optimization.

The managed print service provider will supply you with the right printing equipment for your business’s unique needs. The MPS services will also provide ongoing technical and troubleshooting support while fulfilling maintenance and broad management services. In short, managed print services give you the tools and assistance you need to meet all of your business’s printing needs for a set, recurring fee.

When you partner with a professional managed print service provider, you get to focus more on your business and less on making sure your printing equipment is functional. Plus, you can print documents the moment you need them, and your entire workforce will enjoy the benefits of streamlined printing operations. When malfunctions occur, you’ll have a professional team ready to solve the issue so you can get back in action.

Why Is Business Print Management Important?

Using business printing services is important for every company because it can take your business’s printing operations to the next level. From there, the benefits spread to other areas of your business. It’s essentially a domino effect — business print management is the first domino to fall, and over time, many other aspects of your business could see an improvement, as well.

Many businesses don’t track their print costs on the assumption that the cost is negligible. Other businesses lack a system that allows them to track costs and budget money for printing. Some companies’ information technology (IT) departments spend far too much time fixing printers when they could be performing other technological tasks. MPS will give you deeper insight into your printing budget and can help free up your IT workers to focus on essential tasks.

Below are nine actions proving the importance of managed print services for your business.

1. Analyze Your Printing Situation and Needs

While your IT department may be able to analyze your print fleet, it’d be time-consuming and has the potential to turn into a full-time job in its own right. Instead, your best bet is to let a managed print service provider analyze your printing situation. They’ll be able to see the shortcomings in your current system to determine the best course of action.

An MPS provider possesses the knowledge needed to observe your current operations and determine the best consolidation methods for streamlining how your business approaches printing. These experts can also ensure your business is using the best equipment for your needs at an affordable price. And the best part is that an MPS provider will help you with more than just printing — they’ll analyze and consolidate your scanning, copying and faxing needs, as well.

2. Reduce Your Number of Local Printers

The term “local printers” refers to printers that service a single user and remain disconnected from any local networking connections. A local printer is essentially an employee’s personal printer that connects to their computer. While local printers can be convenient for the employees that use them, they’re often unreliable and inefficient.

It makes little sense for you to buy and service as many printers as you have employees. These types of printers also require unique cartridges which can be pricy to replace and difficult to track in your inventory and budget planning. Instead, let an MPS provider revamp your printing process with networked printers and other equipment that your employees can easily share and access. This solution can cut down on costs and lead to more efficient operations.

3. Streamline Your Building’s Printer Placement

MPS can ensure your printers and other equipment are in the best locations throughout your company’s building. After your MPS provider helps you make the transition from many local printers to one or more networked printers, your employees will be able to access the printers in convenient locations.

The MPS provider will determine the proper locations during the analyzing stage of the process, ensuring a smooth transition while helping you increase efficiency and productivity and cut costs and downtime.

4. Identify and Replace Outdated Devices

Old printers and other equipment can be inefficient for several reasons, including the following:

• As the years go by, electronics slowly approach their end-of-life date, becoming more efficient and requiring more repairs to stay functional.
• The equipment itself contains antiquated parts that make them more expensive to operate and less intuitive to use as better technology becomes available.

An MPS provider will identify and replace your outdated equipment so you can bring your printing operations to modern standards. The MPS specialists stay current with industry trends, so they’ll know the best devices available for your business while staying within your budget, all according to your business goals and printing history.

5. Automate Your Hardware Supply Delivery

One of the most cumbersome parts of maintaining your own printing operations is keeping up with ink cartridges. The last thing you want is to run out of ink and have no cartridges on hand when you’re in the middle of printing important documents. Even more frustrating would be buying the wrong ink cartridges to replace your empty ones when you run out.

It’s easy to avoid these unfortunate scenarios when you partner with a managed print service provider. An MPS program will keep track of your devices and automate shipments of printer toner when your ink levels are low. That way, you’ll get the right cartridges delivered to your door before you run out. This automated delivery service will eliminate downtime and keep your employees productive.

6. Establish a Level of Predictability

Every business wants predictability across the board. That’s the key to smooth operations, whether it’s your monthly expenses, client orders, employee dependability or even the functionality of your equipment. One way you can experience more predictability in your business is by hiring a managed print service provider.

MPS programs handle the entirety of your printing operations. This capability lets you consolidate many of your business costs into a single recurring payment. As a result, you can more accurately allot money in your budget to your printing needs, letting you experience a predictable payment in exchange for predictable printing operations. Thanks to your MPS provider, surprise maintenance fees and unpredictable printing costs are things of the past.

7. Train You and Your Employees on New Technology

Learning the ins and outs of new technology can take some time. Often, businesses will task their IT department with teaching the workforce how to use new technology. This can be time-consuming and costly. Worse, it can decrease your efficiency when your IT crew has more important matters to attend to than making sure everyone knows how to use the new printers.

Instead, let your MPS provider do the teaching. MPS professionals have the knowledge to teach you and your workforce about your new printing equipment. As a result, your IT crew can stay focused on other tasks.

8. Manage and Enable Reliable Remote Printing

If you have yet to experience the benefits of remote printing, it’s time to partner with an MPS provider and see how it can benefit your business. Also called mobile printing, remote printing lets your employees print documents from any device, even when they’re out of the office. This ability spares in-office co-workers from wasting precious minutes searching for paperwork to print for the out-of-office employees.

An MPS service can help you establish and maintain your remote printing system while troubleshooting any problems that might arise along the way.

9. Improve the Security of Your Business’s Printing Activities

An unpolished printing system can become a security pitfall for your business. If employees are unsure what printer to use, they can accidentally lose track of sensitive documents, leaving them sitting in trays for anyone to pick up and see. It goes without saying that’s something you want to avoid.

One way you can improve the security of your printing process is via a process called “device hardening.” This practice refers to implementing systems and boundaries to ensure your printing equipment is safe from hacking and only authorized personnel can use it. Examples include using a keycard or passcode system to access printers and request print jobs.

The 3 Steps of Business Printing Services

MPS includes three specific steps to help you upgrade your printing process. These steps involve collecting essential information about your printing needs, analyzing the findings and implementing the right protocol. Read on to learn more.

Step 1: Collect

First, your MPS provider will conduct an assessment to understand the current condition of your business’s printing environment, collecting the following information:

• How often employees print documents and where their printing requests go
• The types of printing jobs issued, including how many projects are in color and how many are in black and white
• How much ink is used

The data gained from that preliminary assessment plays an important role in showing you how much your business spends on printing. The results may surprise you!

Step 2: Analyze

After collecting the assessment data, your MPS provider will analyze the results. The goal of analyzing the data is to help the MPS make suitable recommendations to add value to your printing operations. These recommendations should resonate with you and present solutions to your longstanding issues with your business’s printing operations.

Here are some of the potential outcomes of implementing their recommendations:

• Enhanced productivity
• Improved printing security
• Cost savings
• Greater efficiency

This analyzing step will also help you have a better understanding of your outputs. Combined with MPS recommendations, you have the chance to upgrade how your employees access the printers and streamline operations to achieve greater efficiency and cost savings.

Step 3: Implement

With the help of your MPS provider, you’ve gathered the data and analyzed it to create potential solutions to your printing issues. The implementing phase is when you put the plan into action.

A trustworthy MPS provider will guide the implementation process from start to finish. Before your MPS partnership, the common business activity of printing may have seemed trivial or inconsequential to your overall business success. But when you implement the recommendations brought forth by your MPS provider, you can experience increased security and productivity while enhancing your bottom line.

In the end, you’ll have turned a standard office practice — printing — into a leveraged asset.

Why Choose Doceo as Your Managed Print Services Provider

Every business needs a trusted company to oversee something as important as managed print services. Doceo brings together proven technology and proven people to take your business’s printing environment to its fullest potential. Here are some of the ways we help you accomplish your printing goals:

Rapid Response When You Need It

One of the worst things you can experience as a business is feeling like you’re facing a problem alone. That’s especially true when it comes to technology issues involving printers and your other essential equipment.

At Doceo, we’re here for you whenever you need us. The best-in-class team at Doceo can provide you with the service and skills you expect from an MPS provider. And with our vast dispatch network of warehouses, resources and parts, we can solve your problem quickly to minimize your downtime. Plus, our support team’s average response time of two to three hours or less ensures you always have the support you need, increasing your printing process’s predictability.

Proven People Who Can Get the Job Done

An MPS provider is only as good as the people who make up their team. Doceo’s experienced team boasts a combined over 150 years of experience in office technology, making us the ideal choice to manage your printing operations. Doceo’s Copier and IT Technicians also maintain an average experience level of 15 years, so you can feel confident that we’ll resolve whatever issues you might experience.

When you put your trust in us, our experienced team will become your proven asset.

Professionals Who Care for Your Business and Community

Doceo gives back to communities. This means that when you choose Doceo as your managed print service provider, you’re also supporting organizations that can make the community a better place. The Doceo team consists of caring professionals who put your business’s needs first and invest in the communities we all call home.

The Doceo family also cares about each of our team members, fostering an environment of trust, support and motivation. This healthy work environment translates to better service for you — service you can feel comfortable partnering with. Doceo represents the combination of industry experience and caring hearts, both factors working together to give you the best-managed print service in the industry.

Local Offices for Your Convenience

With 11 physical locations throughout Central Pennsylvania, Maryland and Northern Virginia, we make getting in touch easier and more convenient than ever. Some MPS providers lack a physical location, making them hard to reach and reducing your confidence in their services.

Doceo understands that you want your MPS provider to be near your business. Knowing there’s a team of dedicated professionals in your local community can increase your peace of mind. When you partner with us, you’re partnering with more than an MPS provider — you’re partnering with members of your community who care about your convenience.

Partner With Doceo Today for All of Your Printing Needs

Doceo is a local, family-owned managed print service provider you can count on. When you partner with us, you’ll quickly experience the Doceo difference that sets us apart from the competition. Doceo can supply your business with the copiers and printers you need to experience greater efficiency and productivity. Leave it to us to manage your business’s printing operations.

Contact us today for more information about our services. Or, you can request a quote online to take the next step toward achieving best-in-class managed print solutions. Doceo looks forward to serving you!