The past decade was one full of technological advancements spanning from 13 different iPhone releases to industry disruptors Uber and Lyft implementing rideshare technology. How we approach our daily tasks has increased in speed and efficiency based mostly on software advancements. As we move into this decade, your organization will undoubtedly be looking for ways to maximize office technology in ways that are quick, secure and affordable.

Below are 3 steps your workplace can implement, to bring enhanced transparency, security and affordability to your print environment.

Require Authorization
Making sure each user in your organization has an individual login to copiers and devices is vital to compliance and ensuring documents are safeguarded. Authorization is dispersed via a specified user pin code or with a HID card (often the same as an employee badge). By allowing custom access, we are able to allow users access to their individual cloud accounts, folders and shared organizational software such as SharePoint, while also providing the organization with an audit trail of users that accessed specified devices. The audit trail would include activity logs and the time documents were scanned, copied, faxed or printed. In the vulnerable digital world we operate in, it is crucial to take steps to protect your organization from threats both internal and external.  
 
Analyze Your Fleet of Equipment
While it is important to be up to date with the latest software and applications to ensure your document workflows are efficient and secure, you must also have office equipment that can support these initiatives. Inspecting your fleet should consist of noting each device and whom it is serving. For example, you may have a shared printer for a few employees in cubicles and private printers for private offices. In the same way, you may have shared copiers for all employees to use. Noting these devices and their users will allow you to dive into their print volumes. By acquiring these details, you can gain a better understanding of how your users are printing, the costs associated, and whether a change in equipment or approach in how you deploy devices within the organization is needed.

Monitor Your Print Volume
Understanding your print volume is important to uncovering the cost of your print environment and the trends that may help you cut costs. For example, if you are an organization with busy seasons you may see spikes in certain months where your printing was much higher than other months. If your maintenance plan with your current service provider is set to monthly or potentially even quarterly, it may be costing you in the form of overages. Overage, is a term in the industry that refers to the amount of prints that are used above the contracted allotment. If you were allotted 2,000 black prints per month and you ran 3,000, you would have to pay for the additional 1,000 at the overage rate specified in your contract. Knowing this, it may make sense to change your maintenance plan to a different time period such as semi-annually so the volume is more evenly spread across the high and low volume months. This is just one way that monitoring your print volume can help your organization be strategic and budget conscious.

At Copiers Plus we specialize in helping organizations create customized print and document management plans. We would love the opportunity to provide a complimentary assessment of your organization’s print environment to find ways we can help you safeguard your documents, bolster efficiencies and bring money back to your bottom line.

To schedule your complimentary assessment, contact us at 800-648-7081 or visit our website.
 
Drew Smith currently serves as Director of Communications for Copiers Plus. The company specializes in modernizing office equipment and increasing efficiencies in workplace communications throughout the state of North Carolina. To learn more about how Copiers Plus is providing their customers with innovative document solutions and enhanced printing transparency, visit copiers-plus.com. Drew would love to hear from you at [email protected].