Calculating return on investment (ROI) from print is tricky - unless you know where to focus your efforts when it comes to measuring the true cost of MPS.
For example, if you stop someone printing a full colour, five-hundred page PDF manual for their new camera, what saving can you expect to make?
The answers often rely on user analytics, which enable businesses to take ownership of their printing policy and easily identify bad printing behaviours.
Connecting billing with departmental activity
With user analytics in place, an IT or finance manager can focus on specific departments and analyse printing usage by users during certain billing periods.
This is commonly used for recharging internally. For example, if the accounts department appears to have incurred printing costs of £1,700 in a single month, the data presented by user analytics enables the business to recharge the head of that department rather than simply lump it into a company-wide figure.
ROI can only be properly calculated if the organisation has a solid grasp on MPS usage at departmental level - and that’s only possible with analytics that summarise individual user print activity within any given period.
Correcting the cost
When seeking accurate ROI figures, businesses should be able to correct printing costs that have been allocated to the wrong department or type of print.
In our example above, the ability to identify the exact department in which the printing was undertaken enables us to rectify any incorrect cost allocations, thus increasing the reliance and relevance of ROI calculations.
Unearthing the hidden costs
Traditional print management solutions usually enable you to configure a cost per black and white page printed, one for colour and the various paper sizes (A3, A4, and so on).
This is great - until you realise how many other costs remain unaccounted for.
Recurring MPS charges, lease charges, contract dates for printers and hardware capital expenditure are just some of the costs associated with printing that user analytics helps you unearth.
To gain a reliable ROI figure, the ability to account for the aforementioned costs, alongside the more traditional expenses and supplier fees is vital. This also enables you to bridge the gap between what the print management solution is reporting and the value of supplier invoices.
Most companies will have experienced the issues relating to internal recharging when their MPS doesn’t match up with what’s being invoiced by the supplier, which is why user analytics is such a useful tool for measuring ROI.
Big savings on unprinted jobs
It’s not unusual for people to print something and never actually go and pick it up from the printer - without certain procedures in place, print-outs are then left of the printer tray for anyone to pick up.
By implementing user analytics aligned with a ‘follow-me printing’ solution (which forces users to authenticate with a card or code at the output device in order to release a job), businesses will alleviate this issue.
Authenticating and releasing jobs only when needed cuts down print waste considerably, and user analytics enables businesses to quickly see how much has been saved by viewing the number of unprinted jobs and their associated cost.
Imagine if the cost of unprinted jobs over a six month period totalled £24,000. More importantly - imagine knowing that was the case and being able to add that saving to your ROI calculations!