Think Cost of Ownership
Printelligent will help you move away from making print device purchases based on acquisition price alone to focusing on total cost of ownership.
Total Cost of Ownership
Many businesses make print device purchase decisions based on acquisition price or a few prominent features, such as print speed. Our experience indicates it is very important to review the total cost of ownership of any print device over its entire useful life, before making a purchase decision. You may be surprised to learn that purchase price represents only a small portion of the entire cost of owning a print device.
Printelligent has found that less than 25% of the total cost of ownership of a print device is captured in acquisition price and more than 75% of the cost lies in supplies, service and maintenance needs. Our experts will help you factor in monthly page volumes, operating costs per page, and acquisition price, as well as review a list of preferred operating features, before making a recommendation. In this way you will be considering the complete picture when making a purchase decision.
Centralize Purchasing
To more fully manage your print environment we recommend centralizing print device purchasing. For your business it might be the IT group that makes these decisions, or perhaps facilities or purchasing. It doesn't matter who makes these decisions. What matters is that all print device purchases (print, copy, fax and scanning devices) are made based on a wholistic strategy, taking into consideration all business needs. It's vital to the management of your print environment to have centralized purchasing and overall responsibility for the print environment within one department, and preferably one person.
Wholistic Purchasing
Often when presented with a specific print-related problem or need, your business will make a specific printer purchase to address it. Printelligent suggests a different approach in order to view the needs of your print fleet wholistically. First, identify all the print needs within your business that are not currently being fully met. Identify and purchase the print device that brings the greatest benefit to the most employees, and then relocate remaining resources to address the acute needs. Often this process leads to the purchase of a more robust device than required to meet the immediate problem, but has a better overall result.
Whenever new devices are introduced on the market, they hold the most current technology available in the print industry. Networked devices are evolving and embracing added administrative functions through online interfaces, enhanced security features, new user functionality and options for personal work preferences as well as process improvements. As you purchase wholistically, you will keep your print fleet technology current within a balanced environment, placing your investment in print devices that fill the greatest need and bring added benefits of current technology.
Retire Problematic Devices
As part of Printelligent's Managed Print Solution, our experts look at several ways to optimize your print environment. Management reports are prepared with data specific to your print fleet. Through analysis we can identify print devices that are requiring more service and support than users may find tolerable. Through our experience, we've found that businesses often continue using older and problematic print devices, simply because users haven't voiced concerns. We can identify when a device should be retired and taken out of service. Problematic devices are identified in conjunction with replacement recommendations.
Summary: Purchasing 101
In summary, your purchasing decisions are best made when:
- You know and understand the total cost of ownership of a print device;
- When purchasing decisions are centralized;
- When you purchase from a wholistic view selecting devices to meet the greatest needs and then relocating remaining devices to address acute needs; and
- Retiring problematic printers.