5 Practical Benefits of Managed Print Services

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What are managed print services?

Managed print services are an all-in-one solution where a service provider manages all printer and photocopier maintenance and optimisation of your business printing. This includes services such as:

  • Increasing security on your printer network
  • Managing stock levels of ink
  • Optimising your spend
  • Maintenance
  • Printer network set-up
  • Repairs & replacement of parts
  • Lease, rental or sale of MFDs (multi-function devices such as printers and photocopiers)

 

Outsourcing print management services saves businesses time and money by ensuring their critical print services are always fully operational – without having to dedicate their in-house resources. It allows printing to be what it should be; a useful tool, not another chore.

What are the benefits of managed print solutions?

 

1. Improved security & GDPR compliance

Data security has never been more important – and it applies to your print room too.

Printers often present a large security risk for multiple reasons: on one hand, there’s a lot of manual room for error. Employees could print sensitive documents and leave them for anyone to see! On the other hand, printers can often be a weak spot for cyber-attacks too.

 

As part of our managed print services, we offer Quills Secure Software. We use a multi-layered approach to keep your printing secure from both cyber-attacks and in-person data breaches. Better yet, this software allows your printers to be GDPR-compliant!

Here are some of the useful features we provide:

  • Secure print release. Instead of documents going straight to print, employees have to walk to the printer and authenticate their print jobs first. This not only stops sensitive data from being left out in the open but also cuts costs by stopping accidental prints.
  • Watermarking, digital signatures and user tracking. We make it simple to oversee employees’ printer usage. Watermarks and digital signatures on printed documents make it possible to view full details of the date, time, printer and author of the print job.
  • Easy erasing of past users. As part of GDPR compliance, ex-employees have a right to be forgotten so it is essential that you have an easy way to delete their data. Fortunately, our Quills Secure Software has made this simple.

2. Managed print services help businesses cut costs

In most workplaces, printing will be at the bottom of the priority pile. However, that means there are often a lot of inefficient practices that could be costing your business money. Managed print services are a great way for businesses to control and minimise costs.

  • One monthly fee is easier to budget for than fluctuating costs. Most MPS providers charge a monthly fee for their services – however, this includes IT support, maintenance, toner replacements and more. This works out to be far better value for money than purchasing items ad-hoc.
    Another benefit is that it’s a predictable cost. As hardware ages, it will require more costly repairs and replacements – whereas, with managed print services, this is included in the monthly fee.
  • Ongoing optimisation. Managed print services are consistently overseen and optimised, meaning that your business benefits from ongoing suggestions to cutting costs.

Quills can conduct a comprehensive evaluation of your print environment, document infrastructure and workflows to suggest cost-cutting measures and look at energy efficiencies too.

3. MPS frees more time for you to do what’s important!

Did you know that an estimated 51% of IT help-desk calls are printer related? Worse still, IT teams often don’t have the printer knowledge or resources to handle those requests – so they have to send tickets to external repair companies. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of valuable time wasted.

Managed print services are a great solution to this issue as they provide ongoing maintenance and support. This frees up time for businesses to focus on what’s important.

4. Reduced environmental impact

Sustainable business practices are becoming the norm and optimising your print services is a surprisingly easy way to start. At Quills, we’re proud to offer the advanced Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) technology.

Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) uses impressively high-yield ink supply units – with the ability to print up to 84,000 pages between ink changes. Not only does this minimise the time and labour of replacing, then recycling, ink cartridges but it also boasts a significant amount of environmentally friendly features:

  • 96% less energy than laser printers
  • 94% less waste than laser printers
  • 92% less Co2 emissions than laser printers

MPS also focuses heavily on monitoring your workflow and suggesting improvements – such as ways to cut down on waste.

5. Managed print services adapt to fit your business’s changing needs

We live in a fast-paced world. Each year, there’s new software, new legislation, new hardware . . . it can be hard for business owners to keep up! The beauty of using a managed print service is that staying up to date becomes their job.

As your business’s needs grow and change, your managed print services will adapt to fit. This allows your business more flexibility and takes one of the boring – but essential – administrative tasks off your hands.

What managed print services do Quills provide?

The best way to discover what managed print services we can offer your business is to contact us! Each company is unique and we will execute a comprehensive evaluation – complete with a cost-saving projection – to ensure we find the best solution for your needs. Here’s a brief overview of some of our services and their benefits:

Document management

  • Increases workplace productivity
  • Could save up to 30% on your total document costs
  • Simplify and automate everyday operations
  • Open new revenue streams through creative products and services
  • Improve document security

Quills secure software

  • Ensures your printers are GDPR compliant
  • Watermarking, digital signatures and user tracking
  • Secure print release
  • Erasing past users

Remote monitoring

  • Simple breakdown contracts
  • Export or automatically email data to your management system (for example, Evatic, Valelink)
  • Notify users about low consumables (your ink cartridges) via email
  • Can be used on secure networks
  • Order thresholds for consumables can be based on multiple criteria including expected empty date, consumable level, days between change, pages between change, consumable status, detailed consumable information and much more

Sustainable & Energy Efficient improvements

Inkjet printers are not all the same.  Did you know that some use thermol heat to fuse the ink to the paper and another method is called piezo which is a heat free process and a more energy efficient way to print.  With energy prices increasing (2022/2023) now could be the time to review your printer fleet and consider switching to heat-free inkjet printers.  View the following video to learn more or view the following brochure on Epson heat-free printing technology.

Maintenance Support

  • We can provide support for your printer fleet and look at cost effective and energy efficient replacements should a fix not be possible.  This can also include re-conditionned printers if your budget is tight.

To discuss your workplace printer fleet needs, contact one of our experts  today.

Switch to eco print technology for a sustainable future

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Printing the eco way

Sustainability is an important driving factor within industries across the board and will continue to guide and influence all aspects of technology. Businesses are moving towards a greener and more environmentally efficient operations and printer manufacturers are no exception.

One of the things that we can change is how we consume energy. Burning fossil fuels to create electricity produces vast amounts of CO2 and switching to heat-free technology will lower your power consumption. If every business in the UK made the switch to Epson Business Inkjet printers, the reduction in CO2 would be equivalent to the volume absorbed by at least 5 million trees.

Laser versus Inkjet Printers

Viewing laser and inkjet printers, there are no obvious differences in appearance; however, within the inside of the printers there is a vast difference. Epson inkjet printers use heat-free technology and standard printers use lasers which involve several steps, plus a high level of energy is needed to heat the toner and ultimately fuse it to the paper. 

Thermal Inkjets 

 

Thermal inkjets are another printing choice and yet again the process incorporates complex phases and requires heat to ensure prints are completed. Epson’s heat-free solution, unlike the other options, doesn’t require heat in the ink ejection process. Rather, this technology involves pressure to the element which flexes back and forward, firing ink from the printhead.

Benefits of the Epson heat-free inkjet printers

This eliminates most of the physical waste involved in printing when compared to comparable colour laser printers. But that’s just the start. It also significantly reduces time and hassle, helping you to meet your environmental goals and improve productivity by providing the benefits of a distributed printer fleet.

Firstly the super-high-yield ink supply units print up to 84,000 pages between ink changes. The Ecotank ink is different from regular ink cartridges that carry 2-year expiration dates because the ink in a regular cartridge is soaked into a sponge which can dry out. Ecotank ink is squirted into a chamber where it remains until it is used. For it to dry out, it would have to evaporate, so it’s highly unlikely. No big ink cartridges are required, just small ink  bottles to fill the tank which means less storage, less waste, and they are up to 23% quieter.  They really are the green printing alternative. 

The heat-free printing is high speed and therefore time-saving. With no warm-up required, the printer can go as soon as it’s switched on or woken from sleep mode. Epson heat-free technology uses up to 83% less energy and up to 92% less CO2 than laser technology, saving both energy and money on running costs. 

Epson heat-free inkjet printers offer improved reliability and significantly reduced downtime meaning productivity stays high. Heat-free inkjet printers use fewer parts which result in fewer replacements being needed.

 

When it’s time to review your printer fleet, do get in touch.