Between diminished funding and rising costs, institutions of higher education are looking for ways to use their budgets as efficiently as possible. Printing costs average 9.4% of annual budgets, and significant savings of 20-30% can be gained.

Students want better services. Colleges and universities have financial pressures along with the general expectation that they be environmentally responsible. All can be accomplished with a sound managed print services plan for their copiers and printers.

Optimize Your Print Environment

• While popular, personal office printers are the most expensive way to print, and standalone devices have limited uses. Connecting all staff (with necessary exceptions) to centralized multifunction printers brings costs down and efficiencies up significantly. 
• Evaluating your print network can uncover devices that are duplicative or have too many or not enough features than are needed for a particular location. Improve your workflows with a thorough print assessment. 

Improve Efficiencies

• A mobile printing function will satisfy the needs of students and administration to be able to print from their smartphones and tablets.
• Follow-me printing enables a user to pick up their copies from any printer on the network, saving time and preventing waste.
• Automatic ordering of consumables saves administrative time and facilities storage space.
• Connecting the printers to the cloud encourages greater information sharing between staff, professors and students.
• Document workflow management can be added, which automates processing of paperwork for the staff. Some software was created specifically for schools and can automate test grading.
• Remote monitoring of the devices ensures that maintenance schedules are followed proactively, reducing downtime. With all printers connected, there are more backup options if a printer goes down.

Increase Environmental Sustainability

• When users are required to authorize a print job at the device via PIN or other method, less paper waste is generated.
• Printers can be set to default to double-sided printing to save paper.
• Toner cartridge recycling programs further the “going green” initiative.

See Real Savings

• Schools realize significant purchase or lease savings by replacing the many personal printers and other single use copiers with networked multifunction devices. Energy, as well as costs per page, are less, too.
• With user authentication required at every device, you will know who is using your equipment and how much they are printing. This visibility into usage can help identify department budget requirements as well as determine future needs. It also allows for students and departments to be charged for their copies.
• Staff can focus on more important tasks. Purchasing has a single monthly invoice rather than many, and administration no longer has to maintain consumables or report print meters. Service of the devices is handled by your managed services provider, freeing IT to focus on higher level projects.

There are many ways a managed print services agreement can help an institution become more cost-effective and process efficient. A free print assessment can reveal the best ways