Find the right Managed Print Services (MPS) strategy for your business, and you’ll be able to cut costs and optimise your print infrastructure.

Enterprises from across the world are increasingly turning to MPS, and if you want to join them, you’ll need to become familiar with the following MPS strategy elements:

1. Process design

You need to ensure that your underlying print infrastructure is audited, optimised and available whenever (and wherever) called upon.

To draw up a plan for a long-term, compliant and secure document infrastructure, process design needs to come into play:

• Process optimisation. Whether it’s a full redesign or integration with legacy systems that’s needed, an MPS provider will offer solutions that are tailored to your exact needs (usually in the form of software or web-to-print storefront platforms).
• Asset management. Web-based asset management tools will give you full control of print device management. Usage tracking, driver updates and consumables monitoring are the kind of features you can expect.

2. Print awareness

Print awareness strategies will encourage employees to modify their printing behaviour.

Combine this with employee training about the impact of excessive printer use, and a more efficient printing culture should start to develop.

There’s a couple of solutions that will help you here:

• User management. One of the best ways to rein in bad practices and save money is to set device defaults for things like double-sided printing and the restriction of colour printing.
• Business intelligence software. A real-time ‘dashboard’ view of user behaviour will allow management to drill down into all areas of print operations.

3. Digitalisation

The best MPS strategies for enterprise focus heavily on ‘going digital’.

This will help your business with digital transformation, reduce physical print costs and provide employees with instant access to documents no matter where they are or which device they have to hand.

Here’s how to push forward with digitisation via an MPS strategy:

• Invest in routing solutions. An easy-to-use, quick scanning infrastructure will replace labour-intensive paper processes with digital workflows.
• Optimise mobility. Perhaps the biggest aspect of a ‘digital first’ strategy, mobility can be optimised by using special software to help employees read, annotate, store and share documents while they’re on the move.

4. Security

The introduction of increasingly capable, internet-connected MFDs has transformed the enterprise, but has brought with it increased security concerns.

A proper MPS strategy will mitigate cybersecurity threats inherent within your print infrastructure by focusing on data encryption, whitelisting protection, anti-malware services and devices that meet regulations.

MPS security is bolstered by the following strategies:

• Mobile management. Look for toolkits that enable remote employees to access documents securely and from any device.
• Connectivity and onboard security management. Cloud services can now integrate with MFDs to allow easy printing and scanning of documents from anywhere, but security can take a hit as a result. Advanced whitelisting and endpoint visibility address these concerns.

5. Tracking mechanisms

Following the successful implementation of an MPS strategy, managers need tools to track, monitor and report on how well it’s performing.

There are two ways they can do this:

• Reporting. Your MPS provider will be able to produce management reports as and when required. These enable managers to track account developments and service delivery, while gaining insight into printer behaviour.
• KPI tracking. With live, visual ‘dashboards’, KPIs can be tracked in real time. Bottlenecks can therefore be identified quickly, and emerging issues more easily shown to senior management when requested.

What’s right for your organisation?

Every business is different, and the solutions you’ll need for your enterprise will depend entirely on the nature and needs of the business.

Our advice is to collaborate with a reputable MPS provider, such as Xenith,  who will proactively work with managers to draw up a roadmap to successful MPS implementation.