There is a lot of buzz in the printer cartridge world about Managed Print Services (MPS) and the advantages it can offer the vendor and the printer user. It’s estimated that most companies spend 1-3% of their revenues on printing. It is also estimated that by using MPS you could save as much as 25% on your printing and copying costs. Sound like some thing your business would like to take advantage of?  There are are few things you should know before you jump in.

Before I jumped in, to writing this, I took the opportunity to meet with Bill, a representative from a MPS company here in San Diego. Bill has been working in the printer cartridge industry for the last 16 years so I figured he was pretty knowledgeable. What you read below is based on our discussion.

If you didn’t guess from the first paragraph, MPS is for businesses. There are some technical reasons for this and financial reasons. We’ll skip the technical.

First for MPS to be truly effective you need to have at least 20 printers in your work place. Anything less and you probably won’t realize a savings. Ideally most of your printers also use the same cartridge, and that cartridge is a toner cartridge.

If you fit this criteria, or come close to fitting this criteria you should consider contacting a MPS provider. They will come out and do an evaluation on your printer situation and make suggestions as to how you can reduce your printing costs. Should you decide to utilize their services they will be able to do some pretty amazing things for you.

Not only will they streamline your printing and copying operations but they will also be able o monitor what everyone in your office is printing, when they are printing it, and where they are printing it. Armed with this information they can suggest processes that will increase the productivity of the printing in your office.

While speaking to Bill he shared that many of his clients like to change out their toner cartridge as soon as they get the low toner warning prompt. He said that this was costing them quite a bit of money because the toner cartridge may still be as much as 25% full when this warning appears.

Remember, the low toner (or ink) warning means you should make sure you have another cartridge ready to print with. It does NOT mean change the cartridge. Keep printing with the cartridge in your printer until the print starts to fade, or you can’t print with it any longer.

An MPS can do this for  you. Your printer is remotely monitored. When this warning message appears your MPS provider will make sure you have another cartridge on hand.

Not only does this service save your company money, it will remove the hassle of printer management from your work day.

Have you ever used Managed Print Services? If so, take a minute and let me know how you feel about it. Also, if you want more information on MPS, leave me a post. I will email you Bill’s contact information so you can fn d out more. Thanks!