Having wide format print technology in your business can provide many benefits, including faster turnaround times, increased security and confidentiality, and potentially lower costs—depending on your print activity. Below are details on each of these benefits.

Faster Turnaround Times

When you own a wide format printer, you can theoretically print whenever you’d like. You can produce a document in a matter of seconds or minutes, depending on the complexity of the job. In contrast, when you outsource wide format printing to a print shop, you may not receive your print(s) right away. You are entered into the queue of the vendor’s scheduled jobs, and you may need to wait days for delivery. With wide format customers requiring quicker turnaround times (according to Keypoint Intelligence-InfoTrends research), in-house wide format printing might make sense.

Increased Security and Confidentiality

Outsourcing wide format print jobs requires you to give up control of your confidential documents and data—at least to the print service provider. The opportunity for a potential security or confidentiality breach is only heightened when access to information is opened up to your provider and possibly their vendors. Certain kinds of documents may not require confidentiality, but others may contain valuable internal, customer, or strategic information that must be protected. Conducting wide format printing on your own reduces the chances that this information falls into the wrong hands.

Potentially Lower Costs

While wide format printing is certainly an investment (e.g., a printer, media, and ink and office space are required), it can be one that pays off nicely. Depending on your wide format printing needs, it may be significantly less expensive to print in-house, rather than outsourcing to a third party. In most cases, a third party will charge you a higher cost per page than what you can achieve on your own. When you are printing a fair amount of wide format output, this savings can outweigh the cost of the printer and consumables. Your business technology dealer can help you run some calculations to determine if in-house wide format printing would save your particular organization money.

Summary

Adding wide format to your business’s print capabilities can provide benefits around turnaround time, security and confidentiality, and even cost. Depending on your top objectives and print needs, this kind of investment may be worth considering. Asking your trusted business technology provider for their input on your wide format viability can be a helpful step toward making this decision.