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On-demand consumable management; Save Money & Eliminate Frustration

Have you ever gone to print a report for an important client meeting only to find that your printer was out of ink and you don’t have any toner cartridges in stock? This can be frustrating and costly, especially when you have to stop work, drive to the local office supply store and pick up the supplies you need (at retail price), and hurry back to the office so you can print your job.

On the other hand, to avoid running out at that inopportune moment you can choose to stock your shelves full of supplies. But money is tight, and now you’ve tied up cash in an inventory of materials that may sit for months before they are used. Even worse, your supplies may be stolen or damaged, or even go obsolete as new printers and copiers are brought in.

There is a better way. Large corporations have for years adopted a “just in time” approach print consumables management; they have the procurement personnel needed to make on-demand fulfillment work. But if you are smaller company, it’s likely that you simply run to the store when you need more and otherwise hope for the best.

The benefits of an on-demand approach to print consumables and supplies is an area that should not be overlooked; especially for small and medium-sized organizations that do not have sophisticated procurement systems and dedicated stockroom staff. “Managed print” is not just about print; it is also about managing the materials and consumables that go into each printout or copy.  

Now you can take advantage on-demand fulfillment even if you don’t have an enterprise-sized organization. Our certified Managed Print4U partners will put a program in place that will monitor your activity and assess your volume and demand. From there, we will monitor the supplies on hand and purchase inventory only when you need it. This way you won’t have your precious working capital tied up in obsolete inventory. Perhaps more importantly, you won’t run out of a critical item at just the wrong moment.

Contact us today to find out how you can benefit from an on-demand fulfillment program with one of our certified Managed Print4U partners.

Call 770-814-4284 or email info@outsourcemanagement.com

Managed Print Services – Gain Cost & Operational Benefits

There is a problem confronting small and mid-sized businesses today: mis-managed office printing and copying. Pick any department or any business process and you can bet that printers and copiers are essential tools to get the job done. But despite their importance to company performance, printers and copiers are rarely managed as a corporate asset. Often budgeting is fragmented among various departments and resource planning is for the most part based on proposals from incumbent vendors rather than internal strategy. This inevitably results in increased operating costs, sub-optimal performance of the environment, and lost opportunity for process improvement.

Printers and copiers are an environment that is ripe for greater efficiency and cost savings. Analysts estimate that companies in America spend 6% of their annual revenue on work group printers, copiers and scanners. Ironically, despite significant advancements in office technology most companies struggle to control and minimize the costs associated with office documents. As a result, workgroup printing and copying remains an untapped opportunity for savings and improvement in most organizations today.

One way to get your output under control is through Managed Print Services (MPS) – a strategy to analyze and manage document output devices throughout your company with an eye to minimize the costs. Other benefits come from enhanced productivity, increased efficiency and improved environmental sustainability (to name a few).  

The best Managed Print strategies follow this famous adage: Good data equals good decisions. You must first have a clear understanding of a number of benchmarks in order to optimize your environment. Important data points include device usage, service and uptime, supplies and consumables, and peak demand; among many others. Without a good baseline analysis even the best MPS strategy can run off course. But gathering and analyzing “speeds and feeds” is only one part of the MPS equation. You must also purposefully monitor and examine the environment with an eye to constantly adjust machines, features and placements as needed to ensure optimal performance and cost-effectiveness. Organizations often focus their attention on printers and copiers only every few years when it is time to renegotiate a lease agreement. Ongoing management is needed to ensure both your machines and your vendor contracts perform as expected.

Getting the most from MPS requires an independent view. Most copier companies and print equipment suppliers provide “fleet management” as a value-added service, but these vendor supplied resources typically lack the perspective and motivation required to ensure the best results. After all, vendors and suppliers often benefit financially from inefficiencies in your printer and copier environment. An independent and vendor-neutral resource is essential in order to perform unbiased analysis and most effectively manage the ongoing performance of your fleet.  

 
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help through our network of independent and certified Managed Print4U partners.
 
Call 770-814-4284 or email info@outsourcemanagement.com

OMI Sponsors Interview Jeff Hayzlett "The Mirror Test"

OMI provider of Statement2web and Managed Print4u is pleased to sponsor the Document Strategy Podcast - Episode 21 - with host Kevin Craine and interview with Jeff Hayzlett, the best selling author of the book "The Mirror Test," on the podcast. Jeff was, until just recently, the chief marketing officer for Kodak. Known for his outspoken appearances on numerous TV reality shows, including Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump, Jeff has built his career on having the ability to get people to look up and pay attention to the problems at hand. And as Jeff points out, if you aren't willing to look at what's working and what isn't - and then take the necessary steps to fix them -you are in for a rough ride.

Listen to the Interview with Jeff Hayzlett:

Click Here

OMI Reduces Paper At Pacific Northwest Medical Center

                                                                     

The old adage, “good data equals good decisions,” holds true for this leading medical center in Washington State that recently adopted Print Management Software to better analyze and monitor their workgroup printing environment. With approximately 500 printers spread across a 13 site campus, it became clear to the team of IT analysts that a more complete and flexible business intelligence tool was needed in order to encourage users to reduce printing and adopt electronic document delivery using PDF. The goal was to build user awareness concerning the total cost of printing to the organization. The team also sought to better administer printer leases and vendor billing as well.

After evaluating several competing options, OMI was selected to deploy software solution enterprise wide. OMI provided a flexible and complete print tracking software that monitors printers and printing to help organizations track user activity, identify problems and quantify the total cost of printing. According to the systems analysts on the team, the new solution has bolstered awareness and visibility concerning the environment across the organization. As a result, they are now in position to build meaningful strategies to reduce printing costs by moving to an increasingly electronic environment.

 

 

          Hear the Results!

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The Business of Being Green

 

By: Green T The world is changing. Like the many great empires who came before us, for the first time, we are learning how to cope with having too much. The magazines that used to tell us what to buy now tell us how to de-clutter our lives. Business has also taken a turn. Mail is not received the way it was 50 years ago. In recent years, what used to be a practical and appreciated means of communication has become a burdening clutter. Within merely one year the average person comes in contact with 663 pounds of paper. According to Inform.org "Only about 10% of the paper we consume in a year is preserved in the form of filed documents, photographs, and books or magazines." As our mailing practices change, business must change with it. See How Business is Changing

 

 

National Distributor Cuts Cost with OMI Managed Print Solutions Group

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 Reducing Print,Cutting Costs, Boosting Efficiency at National Distribution Company

"Vendors have asked if they could come in and look at our fleet so that they could save us money. I have to explain to them that we've already taken care of it ourselves."  Keith Royle, Computer Operations Manager-

A National Distributor has distinguished itself over time through its growth, financial success and industry-leading efficiency; so it's no surprise that the company recently embarked on a project to curb overspending in their office printing environment. The OMI Managed Print Solutions Group was engaged to assist with the project and provide objective analysis, and PrinterRx, detailed data gathering software, was used to collect printer device and performance information.

Since the company has a variety of operating centers with a diverse network of printing, copying and multi-function devices, a centralized analysis and management strategy was needed to ensure cost savings and the highest return on investment for their printer fleet.

According to Keith Royle, Computer Operations Manager, This National Leader in Distribution was able to immediately reduce the number of devices in the fleet based upon the analysis. "We wanted to validate our print volumes, as well as what was being printed and who was printing the documents to the MFP devices we have on the floor," said Royle. "And so far what we've done here at our home office is that we had 150 printers and now we only have 37."

Savings as a result of the downsizing have been significant, not only because of the reduced fleet size, but also because the analysis uncovered work going outside of the company that could be more cost-effectively produced inside.  "There was a lot of work that was being done outside, and instead of having it done by somebody else, we're bringing the work back here." By virtue of having better visibility into the volumes and types of documents being printed, the company is now able to make more intelligent decisions about where output needs to be produced for the best cost.