Inkjet & Digital Printing
Ricoh Offers Managed Print Services to Reduce Printing Complexity
Friday 03. October 2008 - Four-Step Process Designed to Measurably Reduce Companies' Total Cost of Ownership
Ricoh Professional Services (RPS) of Ricoh Americas Corporation, the leading provider of digital office equipment, today launched a new service to minimize the complexity and cost of printing in today’s highly networked business environment. Managed Print Services (MPS) was created to streamline companies’ current print operations by working with RPS to help reach critical business goals from a productivity and financial standpoint.
The nature of printing has changed dramatically over the years. In the past, printing was simple as everyone either shared one device or had a personal printer. Now the printing landscape is more complex with multiple printers, multifunction products (MFPs), servers and drivers comprising the output environment picture. In addition, users are continuously increasing their standards in regard to results, security, sustainability and cost. To address these demands, Ricoh created the MPS offering. This flexible program makes it easy to outsource all or part of the print management process – without giving up any control over speed, quality or performance. Best of all, users only pay for actual output and work with one point of contact – an MPS expert – in order to streamline the process.
Users of this program participate in a four-part process with MPS experts in order to create a package of services to help them reach their printing goals. The four stages of the process include:
-Assess: Provides a detailed overview of current costs and process workflows, along with maps of output device locations
-Design: Recommends a future plan based on the assessment results with specific productivity, sustainability and security measures built it
-Implement: Includes the execution of the plan in order to help users realize the benefits outlined in the Design phase
-Manage: Helps organizations stick to the plan and adapt to any unexpected changes – enabling projected cost-savings and productivity gains to be realized
Outsourcing all or part of the print management process helps reveal hidden costs, identify savings and significantly reduce spending on output. MPS experts work with an organization to remove underused printers, MFPs, fax machines, etc. in order to consolidate output among fewer and faster centralized systems and produce a more strategic document workflow process. In addition, overhead costs are reduced with devices that use less energy, paper and toner and users are not asked to pay any additional costs other than one monthly charge for actual page counts.
In addition to lowering total cost of ownership, other benefits of MPS include sustainable solutions and security options to help protect confidential documents. Security is a main focus and benefit of the MPS program. MPS experts work behind the scenes by utilizing remote monitoring and management tools to make sure an organization’s print environment is running smoothly and sensitive documents are kept confidential. Usage and workflow are closely monitored in order to achieve optimal device-to-user-rations and make sure the fleet of devices is aligned properly with actual volume. Secure printing, file encryption, and removable hard drives all support regulatory compliance initiatives and are part of the standard features that MPS provides.
From an environmental standpoint, optimizing print environments can help organizations improve their corporate reputation by aligning with “green” initiatives and taking a stand in regards to saving energy, reducing paper usage and maximizing recyclables. The hardware and software that Ricoh MPS experts implement have low emissions in order to maintain air quality and protect the environment.
“At Ricoh we are constantly trying to develop new programs and services to make our customers lives easier. As such, we are proud to introduce our Managed Print Services offering as it not only takes the complexity out of the printing process, but also improves bottom line results,” said Carl Sills, vice president, Ricoh Professional Services, Ricoh Americas Corporation.