Keep your printing budget in check by taking a big-picture assessment of your expenses.
The Gartner Group tells us office printing consumes 1-3% of a company’s total revenue. Yet most companies have no idea what they are spending on office printing.
There’s a simple reason for this: The costs for ink or toner supplies, service, hardware and support are not only buried in leases, but they’re also divided across multiple department budgets.
There is no one-line item when it comes to printing expenses, so that 1-3% of revenue siphoning often slips through the cracks.
The Major Metric: Total Cost Of Ownership
When it comes to calculating the costs, many people forget the purchasing price of a multifunction device is just the beginning of the expense landscape. You have to take total cost of ownership (TCO) into account. This metric allows you to assess both the initial acquisition costs and the ongoing operational costs over a device’s expected lifetime.
Less than 25% of the TCO of a print device is the acquisition cost, while 75% of the cost consists of the long-term supplies, service and maintenance needs.
Understanding your TCO is crucial to a cost-effective print management strategy. Not only does it give you visibility into your current financial situation, thereby allowing you to uncover opportunities for improvement, but it also provides a benchmark with which to measure these future improvements.
The Secondary Stat: Cost Per Page
If you are buying supplies and service separately for your multifunction devices, check the manufacturer’s stated cost per page (CPP). But don’t rely solely on this number!
- CPP does not take into account the efficiency and reliability of the device, nor does it consider the impact this has on office productivity.
- CPP doesn’t address whether or not you have the most cost-efficient and resource-efficient quantity of devices to meet your needs.
- You would be surprised how much you could save simply by strategizing and streamlining your multifunction device layout.
- Some manufacturers understate CPP to encourage bigger equipment purchases, so keep this in mind. Don’t invest in resources you don’t need.
You cannot manage something you do not understand, and you can’t understand something if you aren’t aware of it. For a big-picture calculation of ambiguous printing costs, your best and most cost-saving bet is to seek the guidance of managed print experts.
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