Controlling your print spend is one of the first considerations to take into account when procuring print management. 

“Cost, service quality and security are the top reasons for MPS adoption” - in the UK, 46% of organisations place importance on reducing hardware costs, 32% on reducing consumable costs and 32% also placed importance on more predictable costs. (Managed Print Services Landscape, 2018, Quocirca)

There are a lot of different factors that can increase the cost or that can make the costs less predictable. With this being the case, it’s best to get an idea of the overall cost of print through the lifetime of a contract. 

Hidden costs and invoices are a fast way to annoy the finance team and be left feeling annoyed and potentially regretful of your decision in MPS partner, especially when the key driver is cost reduction. 

It’s not enough to simply know the on-going cost of the contract and the cost of consumables and print along the way, you need to know the cost of lease charges, hardware capital expenditure, contract dates for printing devices, cost of additional analytics and solutions. 

One way to get this information is to carefully consider the questions you ask in an RFP for print management. 

Asking the right questions in your RFP

Some of the questions you might ask include: 

• Do you provide a single itemised invoice or multiple invoices for the hardware and software provision?
  
  
• How do you ensure the accuracy of pages billed?
  
  
• Are there any hidden charges that are not immediately apparent?

Gaining this information early on will allow for a more predictable managed print service contract and will give better control of the costs. 

Further to the above, depending on the length of the contract, you can challenge chosen MPS providers on the total cost of the service and everything related over the course of the contract (3-5 years) and also what the estimate of cost savings is plus any other benefits. 

The true cost of MPS and your ROI

Trying to calculate a return on investment (ROI) from print and document management can be difficult it you don’t know where to focus when measuring on of the costs. 

It’s potentially an important part of choosing a new MPS provider because you might want to compare the overall cost and ROI from the previous contract to what you’re likely to get from a new provider or contract. 

When it comes to working out the true cost and potential ROI of a new print management service, an assessment by the new provider is a good step to take. The assessment will allow an MPS provider to get a much better idea of your current printing, scanning and copying processes and the analytics related to this. 

With this information, it’s much easier for a supplier to provide an idea of the cost reduction opportunities and provide a more realistic, predictable cost analysis plan for a new contract. 

Considering the total cost of ownership

When defining the total cost of ownership (TCO) of printing, it’s very easy to make the mistake of looking solely at the cost of printer hardware or the set costs that you know. 

In reality, there are many more factors that contribute to the TCO. They include:

• consumable use: how many ink cartridges, toner cartridges and other disposable printer supplies do the team get through on a monthly basis?
  
  
• energy cost: modern printers might be more energy efficient, but they still draw power; how much do they add to your annual fuel bills?
  
  
• wastage: how much paper and consumables get thrown away needlessly? What about the devices themselves - have you invested in hardware that simply isn’t used?

One of the hardest elements of printing TCO to account for is labour. How many employee hours are spent every month processing print jobs and dealing with printer issues?

A good MPS provider will be able to identify innovative ways to reduce your physical printer fleet, but the best will also be able to find procedural solutions that help accurately measure and reduce costs on an ongoing basis.

To properly control print management costs over the lifetime of an MPS contract, make sure you have a clear idea of what you need from the services and what needs to be included moving forward. It’s also good to take into account whether potential cost reduction over the duration of a contract will balance out the initial cost of the service and set-up.