Opportunity: Reduce your print-related spending
As the demand for office printing decreases, you can cut your printing costs by double digits.
Investment required: Mainly internal labor by IT, since most organizations already have software that monitors printing.
Savings: Approximately $50 per employee annually. It could be higher if it was not recently optimized. Especially since aging equipment tends to cost more to operate, and since you probably need less capacity than in the past.
If you already optimized your printing, why repeat it now?
1. The pandemic has thinned office staff and printing traffic. If you weren’t over-resourced before, you probably are now.
2. The pandemic also has created a buyer’s market in which you can negotiate or renegotiate better deals. Printer and MFP suppliers may make concessions, since they face reduced page volumes and diminished sales and growth1.
Actions
Month 1-2: Reassess your business needs and contractual obligations to suppliers.
Month 3-4: Streamline assets and contracts to your ongoing staffing levels. Adjust to the likelihood that many of your people will work from home.
90 days to one year: Adjust for continuing changes in demand. For example, as your company staffs up or down, and as your sites are reopened and closed.
As the opportunity arises: Beyond office printers, save money on print service providers (print shops). A 2020 benchmark study by Real Sourcing Network, an independent provider of online sourcing of print and marketing services, revealed savings averaging 39% for buyers who use their services to issue four competitive bids2.
Avoid:
Don’t rush into attractive, but potentially self-serving proposals from printer vendors and dealers. Instead, first get a grip on your forthcoming staffing levels and needs. Whether you optimize on your own or have a printer supplier lead the project, get expert, independent help to guide your efforts.
Research: Capture the per-head usage and spending records while the people who created them are still around. Estimate forthcoming changes to need, such as, for example, fewer prints for face-to-face sales calls, but more for shipped merchandise. Identify security and functionality gaps in your the software you use to monitor printers when people work at home.
1. Quocirca’s May 2020 study found that 40% of suppliers expect their revenues to decrease by >20%, and 87% reported decreasing customer print volumes. [https://www.print2025.com/reports/quocirca-covid-19-study-phase-3/].
2. rsnetwork.com
