Putting MPS to work

The Managed Print Services (MPS) market, which has mushroomed in recent years, is still poised for further exponential growth. We catch up with two industry experts to find out why.

How can MPS help organisations to optimise their imaging and printing infrastructure as well as improve workflows?

Guido Vanherberghen. As technology develops so managing business functions such as print and mail becomes more complex for organisations without the necessary breadth of knowledge and expertise. Bringing in this expertise in the form of a MPS partnership immediately opens the door to the latest solutions and techniques. Expertise can drive efficiencies and boost quality. Examples include best use of colour print, managing employee access to print so that brand integrity is not endangered, re-designing documents to eliminate pre-printed stock, managing print procurement and much more. True efficiency comes from the move away from a reliance on departmental desktop devices to a centralised print operation - whether in-house or remotely situated.

Henry Blum. The big benefit of MPS for global enterprises and large organisations is the cost transparency and potential cost reduction it brings to an organisation's printer and copier fleet. A fleet's cost would often spiral out of control, since ownership was previously handled by three different departments: IT for the technical deployment and maintenance of printers, facilities management for the copier or MFP decisions and supplies management and purchasing to pay for the equipment and supplies. With the added cost transparency and a structured approach to the deployment, MPS allows for a controlled environment where printing cost can be reduced dramatically and the equipment can now be integrated into the overall workflows of the company. Thus printers and MFPs become an important business productivity tool that can help to materialise even more dramatic cost benefits, as for every dollar spent on equipment, about US$9 are spent on workflow related processes.

In these tough economic times, organisations are looking at their bottom line. How does MPS help to slash costs and free up time?

HB. When looking at deploying an MPS solution, HP first does an assessment of the office print landscape to see where costs can be cut; for example, the average enterprise has 90 different printer models from six different vendors, which are up to nine years old. All these need application support, driver updates and expensive sourcing of breakfix support and supplies. After the implementation of an MPS, the fleet is reduced to a handful of models, which can be easily supported and operated with one single driver. Thus costs can be reduced between 28 percent and 45 percent compared to the status quo. Additional management services can be easily integrated: namely the introduction of secure printing strategies reduces threats through confidentiality breaches. Integrating pull-print technology means that a PIN or swipe card is needed to trigger a print job at the printer user interface, thus eradicating excess print jobs sitting idle on printers and reducing overall page volume further.

GV. Our research shows that organisations across Europe are wasting €14.1 billion annually because of fragmented print management. This is an astonishing figure at a time when budgets are being minutely scrutinised. We are typically saving businesses an average of 30 percent by streamlining print processes. Workflow control software plays a huge role here, providing businesses with an instant, holistic view of their print spend and helping to control budgets and efficiently schedule work.

How are your MPS offerings helping organisations today? Do you have a recent success story?

HB. There are many examples of companies significantly reducing expenditure through deploying MPS - one being Telenor, Norway´s leading mobile telecom provider. Telenor recently signed a contract with HP whereby the printing fleet was reduced by 1200 machines to 200 HP multi function devices, with corresponding reduction in maintenance and support. In the UK, Teeside University wanted a new integrated print environment that would improve the student experience while reducing costs. Print costs have since been reduced by UK£132,000. With increasing amounts of content and information being shared digitally and through networks, the print world is changing dynamic and organisations are printing smarter - MPS solutions, especially when integrating multi-function devices, help this transition and ameliorate the organisational, workflow and security benefits to be found under shifting from paper-based to a digital-paper environment.

GV. We are delivering productivity gains, cost efficiencies and improved print quality for customers across a number of sectors including financial services organisations, government agencies, retail, travel and transport, telecommunications, utilities and industry. Customers are realising tangible benefits from our MPS offering. Our services have been instrumental in reducing real estate, staffing and future proofing costs. We are delivering competitive advantages to our customers by providing innovation without the need for massive in-house investment and giving these businesses a significantly faster speed to market with critical customer communications.

Centralised management information tools provide better control over operational spend. Routing work to a central location improves efficiency, control and visibility, eradicating the expense associated with high-cost desktop devices, toner usage, staff time, fleet management and more.

How do you see the MPS market evolving over the next 12-18 months and how is your company best placed to cope with changes in customer's needs?

HB. The MPS market is one of the most exciting growth areas in business technology, with an estimated 30 percent of global enterprises currently deploying MPS solutions - meaning there are still 70 percent of global enterprises that are not. This is an excellent opportunity for us as the market leader, not just to drive down costs across these enterprises but also to help them increase their environmental benefits of MPS on a large scale. The financial services industry is a great example of how one vertical market is leading the way in MPS adoption, with eight of the world's 10 global banking organisations currently using HP MPS solutions. HP is a global IT company and thus has the ability to seamlessly integrate printing into the overall IT infrastructure and the workflows of our clients and to allow them to deploy a coherent IT strategy anywhere in the world.

GV. Remote web-access to print services is one area of development. Our solution enables businesses to submit print jobs over the web to be processed at our facility. This gives businesses job-by-job access to powerful best-in-class print technology from the desktop. Additionally, customers and recipients of printed output increasingly demand top-quality and innovation. Our MPS offering provides businesses with the necessary expertise to extract maximum quality and value from available technology. And it's not all about the print. Finishing techniques such as folding, laminating and shrink wrapping are developing apace and are often critical marketplace differentiators. Transpromo is another fast-developing area - the addition of promotional marketing messages onto bills, statements and other mandatory communications. Again, our MPS expertise is opening the door to this technique to businesses who might otherwise lack the necessary skills and resource to fully exploit a rapidly expanding market opportunity.

THE EXPERTS

Guido Vanherberghen is the President of Pitney Bowes Management Services International. Vanherberghen joined Pitney Bowes in 2003 as Vice-President of Business Transformation and has been in his current role since March 2006. He started his career with General Electric and moved into management at Software Sciences (now IBM), Honeywell Bull and spent 10 years at Unisys.

Henry Blum is the Marketing Director for Imaging and Printing Group Services for HP EMEA. Having joined HP in 1983, Blum has a long history within its imaging and printing organisation, including Business Development Manager, Marketing Manager for Digital Workplace Services and Technical Marketing Manager for IPG in Europe.