Are your printers acting like teenagers?

I give credit for this opening to Keith Houghton a Director at Transcend360 Ltd out of the UK.  I will also mention that I am blessed to have a wonderful daughter that is only slightly frustrating from time to time.   I thank the Lord everyday that I haven’t had to worry about the first two questions yet even though she is beautiful.

Do you know where they are?  They never seem to be where they say they are and when you need them to be at a specific place they are never there.  The lost productivity associated with finding (your kid) the right printer for the right job is incredible.  In the end, we select the most convenient printer which is most often the most costly.

Do you know what they are doing?  This question is hardly ever answered with accuracy.  In some instances we have an idea, but when we get all the information it can startle us.  In other instances, we are just flat out flabbergasted because we had no idea and we just trusted blindly.  I will do a NO COST PRINT ASSESSMENT for a business; they are always surprised by the amount of printers and the amount of print spend.

Are they costing too much?  Is it fiscal responsibility or the changes in cost because of age, technology or inflation?  It just seems like $20 doesn’t stretch nearly as far as when we were a kid.  Print cartridges fall into this category as costs are rising and the yields don’t seem to last as long.  Even worse, we aren’t tracking the expense.  It is like giving a teenager a credit card and hoping for responsbility.    The only difference is that you get a bill from the credit card company, companies rarely can tell me the amount they spent on print cartridges last year or even last month.  I can provide a Xerox tool that can track cost and provide a report.

Are they frustrating?  One word, “YES!”  I love my daughter more than the world, but I am sure she is always testing me.  Kids need rules and so do printers.  There can be print governance.

I like the way Keith ends his comments that both must be managed and loved to get the most out of them.  My daughter is probably equally frustrated with me as she understands that I will never stop loving and advising her.  In her teenage words, “I will never stop bothering her.”  She will take “the deep breathe” as soon as I ask if I can talk with her.  What happens when printers go unmanaged?  Take a look at the graph below and understand what can happen when they are managed from a cost standpoint.  This doesn’t account for productivity and sustainability.  I will help you “Print for Less”  and then “Print Less” with Xerox Manage Print Services!