Source your Managed Print Services

Managed Print Services (MPS) might help you to modernize your office environment, avoid unnecessary additional cost and decrease your environmental footprint. But customers do not take the full advantage of MPS capabilities, leaving ROI opportunities on the table. In this post we investigate the different steps to be taken in your sourcing process to make sure that you choose the right partner for your print services.

(by Jan Vanderstraeten)

Managed Print Service Demand Market

Core Demand:

  • Print and capture hardware;
  • Maintenance;
  • Supply replenishment and recycling;
  • Optimization (reduce IT support);
  • Analytics and reporting.

Advanced Demand:

  • Pull printing;
  • Digital workflow places (collaboration solution, security, content management, …);
  • Mobile print;
  • Digital mail;
  • Production center.

 

Market Insight

  • Printing volumes are decreasing every year with 3% worldwide.
  • Print and capture technology in cloud platforms seem to accelerate, together with advanced analytics and workflow capabilities.
  • Independent software providers vary widely in their readiness to deliver cloud-based print. A variety of apps is available, but employees lag in app adoption.
  • Regulations demand high standards for secure printing, and vendors invest to be compliant, while clients do see the need.

 

Supply Market

  • MPS providers;
  • Software providers;
  • System Integrators (Sls)
  • Value-added resellers (VARs) and channel partners as local MPS providers

 

Endorsement

  • Work with vendors that have experience in the industry and are able to quantify costs & savings.
  • Vendors should assume more responsibilities to free up your IT resources.
  • A vendor should be prepared to optimize the print services as soon as your organization is ready.
  • Invite 3 to 5 vendors to answer the RFP every 5 years, sign extension for maximum 2 years.

 

Select your vendors

  • On competitive advantage.
  • On upstream services with the greatest value to the business.
  • On ROI.

Requirement assessment

Customers should compare both solutions of on-premise and cloud print options. Cloud might not be required from the start but it may occur during contract duration. Understand how your provider will support the transition from a commercial, technical and contractual perspective. Determine the likely time frame when your print infrastructure requirements may change based upon existing cloud priorities.

Your IT department should give you advanced notice of any change to print service delivery requirements and keep into account changes in your business requirements such as changes in workflow (e.g. COVID and remote working). To answer these (un-)expected changes the contract should be flexible and a good change control should be in place.

Determine for each of the requirements the ROI.

Define Your...

  • Business goals:
    • Driving down cost by optimizing your fleet
    • Improving business efficiency and increase of internal customer satisfaction
    • Reducing environmental impact
    • Analytics of SLA and uptime
    • Freeing up time of your IT support
  • Benefits and drawbacks of cloud printing
  • Digital Transformation
  • Business outcomes and print strategy
  • The level of internal support to plan, execute and validate

 

Steps to be taken

  1. Inventory of on-premise printer fleet and determine cloud readiness
  2. Include cloud requirement list in the RFP and evaluate the vendor answers based upon these criteria
  3. Identify existing security gaps by engaging an MPS provider/consultant
  4. Identify use cases for mobile printing (current solutions and their risk)
  5. Assess whether your current enterprise mobile management (EMM) can integrate with the available mobile print solutions to increase both ROI and security
  6. Drive app adoption by involving LOB leaders
  7. Drive app awareness by training
  8. Compare MPS solutions with ISV solutions
  9. Identify integration
  10. Evaluate security certification, the security audit and the security service of the provider

 

Selection Criteria

The following selection criteria should be evaluated during your RFP process:

  1. Analysis tools and data monitoring reporting
  2. Delivery (provider capabilities and SLA)
  3. Communication
  4. Supported equipment
  5. Partnerships
  6. Track record
  7. Flexibility
  8. Billing
  9. Up and down scaling
  10. Security
  11. Architecture
  12. Optimization policy
  13. Emerging services
  14. Sustainability
  15. End of contract

To receive a copy of the scorecard model to evaluate these criteria during your sourcing process, contact us.

 

Service Level Agreement

Starting with the RFP, write what you need in each of the seven areas below, and gain the participants' acceptance before committing.

  1. Support of walking distance
  2. User satisfaction
  3. User uptime
  4. Roll out
  5. Supplier replenishment and replacement
  6. Help desk and repair service
  7. Billing

The purpose of SLAs is to communicate what you expect your MPS provider to do for you, for them to communicate which requirements they agree to meet, and to allow you and them to negotiate any discrepancies.

References

Market Guide for Managed Print Services in the Digital Workplace (Gartner ID G00722974 - June 2020)

Market Guide for Managed Print Services in the Digital Workplace (Gartner ID G00332639 - May 2018)

Seven SLAs for Success With Managed Print Services (Gartner ID G00218691 - December 2011)

How to Select a Managed Print Services Provider (Gartner ID G00328299 - October 2018)

Talk to our experts

Interested to know more about these SLAs and how to incorporate them into your agreement?

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