For a small business or SME, optimizing your printer fleet might literally involve upgrading your solitary multi-function machine. But medium-sized businesses face a few more complications. According to Gartner , a ‘mid-sized enterprise’ is any company with between $50 and $1 billion in revenue, and/or 100 to 1000 employees. Not only that, but medium-sized businesses tend to be spaced out geographically, with multiple departments, satellite offices, BYO devices and multi-cloud IT headaches – you get the idea. As soon as you make that jump from small to medium, printing gets a lot more messy.
Here’s how to optimize your printer fleet with top-notch print management.
What do we mean by ‘optimize’ here?
When we say ‘optimize your printer fleet’, we’re really talking about a balancing act. You need to weigh up productivity, cost, efficiency and scalability, while at the same time addressing stuff like waste and security risks. It’s not straightforward, and there’s a reason medium-sized businesses tend to have the worst print setups: they’re too big for a simple solution but may not have realised they’ve outgrown their printer training wheels.
If it helps, think of optimizing this way: what’s the minimum investment you can make in printing to guarantee a satisfactory return?
Consolidate and ‘right size’ your fleet
First step, figure out exactly how many printers you need. Medium-sized businesses often experience ‘printer sprawl’, where multiple underutilized printers lead to an increase in maintenance cost and supplies. You need to assess your current usage patterns and consolidate to multifunction devices (MFDs) that can handle printing, scanning and copying. Basically, if you’re still running single-function desk printers, it’s time to upgrade. Choose models that match your actual usage needs, reducing unnecessary machines and cutting operational costs at the same time. Double win.
Get some print management software
Next step, invest in some quality print management software that gives sysadmins and IT instant visibility over your entire print network. For a lot of medium-sized businesses, there’s no real way of knowing how much you’re printing, or how much a given user or department is printing, let alone stuff like load-balancing and job queuing to maximise network efficiency without this. With print management software synced to your Active Directory and other systems, you’ll be able to monitor print activity in real time, set print quotas, and encourage double-sided printing (50% paper cost reduction right there).
Rollout secure print release
With dozens or potentially hundreds of staff printing ‘round the clock, not only do your printers represent a huge cost sink – they’re also a security risk. That’s why we always recommend medium-businesses implement secure print release . With secure print release, jobs have to be physically ‘released’ in person at the MFD, rather than sitting unclaimed in a paper tray. You can do this with any combination of swipe cards, passwords or PINS (we also always recommend robust multifactor authentication ).
Standardize your procurement
As a medium-sized business, you’ve probably accrued a number of printers and MFDs over the years. Different models. Different brands. Different operating systems. The problem is, using multiple printer brands tends to lead to higher costs for consumables (toner and paper), not to mention fragmented procurement and maintenance contracts. We always recommend standardizing your fleet, if possible. It’s cheaper and less hassle all round, plus you can usually leverage bulk purchasing discounts. By consolidating maintenance contracts under one provider, you also simplify your support systems and reduce downtime across the fleet.
Get on the cloud
Large, dispersed workforces really need cloud print to operate effectively, so if you haven’t moved your print network to the cloud, now’s a good time. By integrating cloud printing solutions either in a private or public cloud environment, your remote and hybrid workers can print securely from anywhere, on any device. Just make sure your mobile device management (MDM) systems include policies for secure print access from BYOD or company-issued devices.
Automate as much as possible
Most medium-sized business run through a pretty linear evolution when it comes to printing. They start with ad-hoc desk printers, then move to a more centralized model. Next comes print management software, followed by cloud and BYOD printing. The last phase is a fully integrated, automated print environment, where your print infrastructure is synched with the business, top-to-bottom. At this stage, you can start to look at things like AI and automation: setting automated backups, group synchronization, account creation, consumable procurement, server deployment, user account balances, the works. When all that’s running smoothly, you’ll know you’ve fully optimized your printer fleet.
