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2018: The year to reassess your enterprise print infrastructure

Managing a multitude of devices, licenses and applications across a large organization can feel like an impossible task. With so much to look after, it is not uncommon that tackling the enterprise print and scan environment management print management takes a back seat. However, over time, organizations can lose control of their print and scan environment as they grow, especially if their operations span across multiple geographies.   
Why do IT departments need to reassess their print infrastructure in 2018?
Your business has probably changed over the last year. Perhaps your current print devices are due for an update to be more efficient, to add additional capabilities or perhaps you finally want to get around to understanding the print needs of your organization. Reducing costs is usually a top three concern, so let’s start there.

Reduce your print costs
There are a variety of ways that print management solutions can reduce your organization’s print costs.
  • Optimize your print fleet based on real usage data: You can’t manage what you don’t know, and this is why reporting is so important. Which devices are being used the most, when and by which departments or individuals? For many companies, the number of print devices can be reduced by replacing single function, personal printers with shared multifunction devices (MFDs) placed in areas where most printing occurs. Print management, with a rich set of reporting features, can give you the insight you need to make decisions on how many printers are needed and where they should be located. Print management also provides secure access to the device and pull-printing which makes it possible to eliminate personal printers which are often a cost and maintenance burden on IT.
  • Purged printing: A job printed that didn’t need to be is an incredibly wasteful and costly excercise. This often occurs when a user sends a print job then realizes that there is a typo, so they reprint the job, with the first job getting thrown away. An estimated 27% of copy paper used today is wasted because of this.
  • Print Rules: Administrators can create rules which enforce cost-saving print policies, including single-sided to two-sided and color to black and white. By disallowing certain types of print jobs from printing or rerouting jobs to more efficient printers large companies can make cost savings. Over time, most organizations find that user behavior changes and overall color and consumable costs go down.
Print & scan software integration
While printing is still a critical function, more and more organizations are looking to add capabilities such as scan workflow solutions for efficiency and productivity. It is important that a print management solution is flexible to do both. However, many solutions require seperate servers, contracts and support agreements to add scan workflows to print management which increases IT management, complexity and costs. Using a fully integrated solution for both print and scan software removes these difficulties and is in line with the capabilities of multifunctional devices.

Increased document security
A key concern for businesses of all sizes, but especially for enterprise level organizations, is security. When printing, copying or scanning, it is vital that sensitive information is secure and the print and scan workflow solution uses the highest security protocols for data and meta data. This includes data that is processed from the print device within the print management solution and also processed and delivered to other systems such as email services, file servers or integrated third party document repositories. Print management and scan workflows can help increase document security in several ways:
  • Device access: Preventing unauthorized users accessing your MFDs means that only those who are in your corporate directory or are authorized guests may print, scan or copy. IT administrators can easily and quickly assign print, copy and scan rights to users or user groups and set up the type of credentials needed – for example, ID cards, username/password or PIN.
  • Pull printing: Instead of print jobs being printing right away, the job is held until the user arrives at the printer. This ensures that documents are not left exposed or printed unecessarily. 
  • Automated scan workflows: Manual scanning is fraught with multiple user steps where human errors can be introduced which may cause a security concern. Automated scan workflows remove the risk of human error by automating secure document delivery to protected file servers, authorized cloud repositories or directly into 3rd party applications. Automated scan workflows also solve another initiative which many organizations have as their 2018 goal: improving productivity and increasing revenue.
Get a head start on reaching your 2018 goals
As organizations look for ways to reduce costs and increase security, they can easily forget about their print and scan environment.  This can be detrimental to the company as an enterprises’ print infrastructure is an important part of their overall IT. Making simple changes and adopting a fully integrated print and document capture solution can help you achieve your aims to reduce costs and improve security. Here at Y Soft, we can support you in the year ahead with our YSoft SAFEQ Enterprise Workflow Platform which will transform your enterprise print, copy and scan infrastructure into a flexible, efficient system that adds value to your organization.

Are you a large organization? What are your pain points on print, copy and scan services in your company? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.
 

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