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According to a Quocirca
report commissioned by
Brother, small and medium-
sized businesses with 50-500
employees are increasingly
attracted to MPS as a means
of controlling escalating
print costs and freeing staff
from the burden of day-to-day
device management.
Two thirds of the 500 SMEs
surveyed said they already had
an MPS or were planning to
implement one in the future.
Reasons for doing so include
the desire to improve service
quality/reliability, gain visibility
and predictability of print
expenditure, reduce print costs
and overcome a lack of internal
knowledge/expertise.
Quocirca’s fndings suggest
there is broad appreciation of
MPS outside the core enterprise
market, but whether smaller
companies want – or even need
– a true MPS (as described on
the previous page) or are just
after greater visibility of print
costs is debatable.
As sales and marketing
director of Brother UK, Phil
16 PRINT.IT 0870 903 9500
The bigger the business, the greater the case for Managed Print Services.
But that doesn’t mean small businesses can’t beneft, too.
As print vendors and resellers target SMEs, PrintIT asked Brother sales
and marketing director Phil Jones and OKI Systems senior product
marketing manager Alan McLeish for their views on MPS for smaller frms.
Managed Print Services
What SMEs really need
Jones has greater knowledge
of the SME sector than most.
He believes that in many cases
all customers really want is
transparency.
“My view is MPS is not right
for everyone,” he said. “MPS
is a fantastic product in the
right environment, but for many
smaller SMEs, the amount of
pages they would normally
output doesn’t warrant an MPS
agreement because they don’t
have the underlying volume to
make the economics work. It’s
more about cost transparency:
sometimes it’s not a managed
solution they need, just a better
angle on their costs.”
Jones estimates that an
organisation must be outputting
at least 1,000 pages per
printer, per month for an MPS
to be economic, largely because
there are additional costs
involved in an MPS that need
to be factored into the overall
price.
“You are borrowing money,
so there is an interest fee. In
many instances there is an
installation fee. There will be
service costs – a one-off or
monthly payment. Clearly you
have the cost of consumables
in line with the volumes you
might be expected to do. And
if you currently have products
under a lease and someone
says ‘We can take that cost
and put in the whole new feet
and settle your agreement’,
they mean ‘We’ll pay it off
and put the bill for that into
the new agreement’, so you
are effectively paying for the
interest twice.”
Do your homework
Before implementing an MPS,
Jones advises businesses to do
their homework. This includes
fnding out their true print
volumes and, if possible, how
much they are spending on
consumables, so that they can
compare the cost of a Pay As
You Go approach to the price
per page quoted by an MPS
provider.
“Most companies still don’t
have a handle on how much
they are printing. The simple
way to understand this is to
see how many boxes of A4
copier paper you consume,
then you will be 80-85% sure
what your print volume is. The
second major factor in any MPS
programme is print density. In
many instances there will be
a Fair Use clause: if a vendor
walks in and says 2,000 pages
a month at this price and you
are printing at 60% density, the
reality is that they will be back
to you asking for more money.
That’s when you get down to
the nitty gritty,” he said.
Jones adds that modern
devices monitor print density
and retrieving this data at
the outset – your supplier will
tell you how – can prevent
problems further down the
line and help maximise cost
savings.
“One customer we gained
was on a scheme that didn’t
have suffcient transparency.
We came in and gave them total
cost transparency by looking at
the documents they produced
and attaching a price per page
for specifc documents that they
used in the business – 26p,
42p or 50p. This enabled us to
say ‘If we reduce colour density
on this form, we can reduce the
cost per page’. We were able to
knock 15% off the previous cost
just by making a few design
changes,” he said.
Minimum volumes
Another area where Jones says
it is important to tread carefully
is minimum print volumes,
where customers pay for a
minimum number of pages per
month either with or without
the ability to roll over unused
volume to the following month.
“If you don’t do the minimum
volume you are paying for fresh
air. Some don’t have a roll-over
capability, so look thoroughly
at the terms and conditions.
Understand what you are
committing to, how you can
exit an agreement and what
the penalties are for doing so,”
he said.
“Standard MPS is about
saving costs and cost
transparency. If you are
prepared to commit to a
vendor for three years, the
vendor is prepared to discount
consumables costs for 3 to 5
years’ loyalty. There are a lot
of benefts for both parties
provided there aren’t silly
minimums. When companies
are committed to large print
Phil Jones , sales and marketing director of Brother UK