“Least Cost Printing” – is it the holy grail of the Managed Print Services effort?

Over the years the convergence of technologies changed not only the way we deliver documents but the cost structure of doing so. As printer technologies evolved workflows shifted from print-once-copy-many to printing to the most convenient device. Commensurate to this was an increase in costs as page volumes moved to relatively expensive toner and ink cartridge-based engines.

So began the idea of least cost printing: as copiers transitioned to digital multifunction devices much of the effort focused on replacing printers and print-once-copy-many workflows with the MFD and concentrating print volumes to a workgroup device.

The Digital Promise

Many organizations invested in new component-based digital MFD technologies on the promise of reduced costs and even improved workflow. More often than not, this digital promise was not realized due to the inability to train their users to adopt these new workflows. The capabilities of the digital MFD remained underutilized in most enterprises as users continued to print to the desktop and workgroup toner and ink cartridge-based printers.

Fleet Management

As the marketplace realized the folly of the idea that the digital MFD would eliminate printers some began to focus on reducing the cost structure of the printer itself. The concept of fleet management began to grow and come to age enabled by improvements in the quality of remanufactured and compatible supplies.

So here we are today with half the marketplace proselytizing the benefits of fleet management while the other half continues to promote digital multifunction devices as the answer to cost containment. Meanwhile, most clients still have one foot in investments in digital MFDs and the other in fleets of printers, both toner and ink cartridge-based. For these, fleet management can without doubt reduce the expenses associated with operating printers but still not to the level of maintaining the multifunction devices.

Least Cost Printing

Simple in concept, least cost printing is one step in the evolution from fleet management to print management. It acknowledges the realities of the marketplace and can deliver dramatic results by shifting pages from higher cost-per-page devices to those with lower operating costs. Organizations can reduce office printing costs by as much as 35% with an effective least cost printing strategy.

A least cost printing strategy takes into account the actual cost-per –page of individual technologies within document output environments combined with the impact on user convenience and efficiency and drives pages to the most cost-efficient device or document delivery method for a particular job. A well designed least cost printing strategy should address issues such as color, duplex printing and electronic document distribution.

Enabling Technologies

While the concept of least cost printing has been promoted by the copier industry for a number of years to cost-justify digital multifunction devices there was not an enabling technology to train and manage users to overcome their resistance to change.

Today, there are low-impact and cost-effective enablers for least cost printing. I have used several and for the most part they are easy to install and maintain and provide an attractive return on investment.

These tools are applicable for small user groups to large enterprises who wish to leverage their technology investments and realize the digital promise. They will receive additional benefits from office printing solutions that include process controls provided by a least cost printing implementation;

• Reduced page output costs
• Improved employee productivity
• Increased utilization of technology investments
• Ability to manage office printing environments

It is my opinion that least cost printing should be part of every well-designed strategy for managing a document output environment.

Page Cost Calculator Update & User Tips

I wanted to thank all of the folks who have provided constructive feedback - it is satisfying to know this tool is saving time for you!

This post provides an update and a couple of user tips:

• The calculator should now work for all Hewlett Packard and Lexmark laser printers and color laser printers - next will be the laser-based multifunction devices
• The default page coverage (9%) is applied universally across all consumables - for a more accurate cost model you may want to reset the maintenance kits, fuser kits and transfer kits to the manufacturer standard five percent (5%). We will update the algorithm in the future to take this into account.
  
• Some of you have asked about access to other supply items - if you click on the file folder icon to the left of a supply item a window will open with alternatives such as high-yield toner cartridges. You can select an alternative from this list and the tool with automatically recaculate the cost model.
• You do have the ability to adjust the supply item cost, yield and assumed coverage model to customize the cost model to accomodate compatible supplies or specific client pricing and usage.

Please continue to provide constructive feedback and share this tool with your fellow sales professionals and other potential users. I will keep you informed of updates on this blog site.

Please provide your feedback directly to me at pagecost@buscomgroup.com.

Once again, here is the temporary link to the tool.

Page Cost Calculator

Cost per Page Calculator - Update

I am surprised by the number of individuals who have registered to use this tool. I know some of you are just looking but hope most of you have found some value in it.

I wanted to update those of you who are using it on some additions and fixes:

• The decimal place has been fixed to represent dollars; for example 0.0440
• Color cost per page is now totalled accurately, sorry about that one, the individual components were correct
  
• I think we have all of the Lexmark monochrome laser printers added now in addition to the Hewlett Packard laser printers and color laser printers
• Some of you have requested a more "intelligent" search function which we will be able to add by moving the tool to a more sophisticated platform when we see its usage increasing

If you find this tool useful please share it with your team members and continue to provide us with your valuable, constructive feedback.

Please provide your feedback directly to me at pagecost@buscomgroup.com.

Once again, here is the temporary link to the tool.

Page Cost Calculator

Cost per Page Calculator - Great Response

There has been a great deal of interest in this tool including quite a few questions directed to me.

Due to this high level of activity I am going to expand on its access and usage:

• To access this tool you need to follow the link below, go to the Sign Up page and fill in the required data completely but ignore the credit card information, it is not necessary
  
• I have intentionally kept the registration process manual at this point so you will not have immediate access, we will inform you by e-mail. Due to the overwhelming response we are running a bit behind here at the outset
  
• I am still editing the data base to enable the automated price calculations so not all devices are ready to go but all of the HP LaserJets and Color LaserJets should be
  
• All supply prices are for OEM supplies and obtained from the manufacturers web store or in a few cases from an alternate web store such as CDW
  
• Cartridge yields have been obtained from manufacturer web sites
  
• The default page coverage assumption is 9% per color channel
  
• You have the ability to customize all three of these fields to accomodate your personal needs, cartridge cost, cartridge page yield and coverage assumption
  
• You can also select an alternate toner/ink cartridge by clicking on the file folder icon to the left of the cartridge description. This is especially important when you are customizing the report for the cartridge types your client is actually using. In the case of Lexmark printers there may be as many as eight toner cartridges available for a monochrome laser printer
  

Now that we have this tool up and running we hope you use it and provide us with your valuable, constructive feedback. There are several folks who have been testing it and it does appear to work well for those devices currently supported.

Please provide your feedback directly to me at pagecost@buscomgroup.com.

Once again, here is the temporary link to the tool; I will eventually be moving it to a permanent URL.

Page Cost Calculator

Cost per Page Calculator

I cannot tell you how many times I heard loud groans emanating from an analyst or sales professional within the copier, printer or fleet management market space as they struggled to research and calculate cost models for cartridge based printers to use in assessments and competitive proposals.

I too had experienced the same frustration and early on began to develop a database of printer models with compatible supplies, manufacturer yields and pricing so I did not keep starting from scratch. Over the years it grew from a simple spreadsheet, to a rather unwieldy spreadsheet and then into a database.

Now before some of you jump in here and tell me how your process is better than calculating cost models let me tell you that discussion is for another day! Some of us less sophisticated folks out here still need to know what supplies go with which devices, what are their page yields and yes even estimated cost models.

A few weeks ago I posted a query in a couple of Linkedin groups about cost per page tools available on the web to simplify the life of analysts and sales professionals – I was surprised to find no one could identify one?

This led me to approach much smarter friends and solicit their expertise to turn my personal database into a web application so I could share it with hard working analysts and sales professionals.

To automate this tool has been slightly more involved than I expected; I have to manually edit each device to enable functionality but am well on the way of doing so. I decided to begin with Hewlett Packard laser technology since it represents some seventy percent plus of the existing installed base.

For those of you who would like to take this for a test drive it is now available for you to do so. I just completed a test where I created cost models for about four hundred different Hewlett Packard laser printers in less than an hour. I think it is safe to say that is significantly quicker than doing the research manually?

I encourage you to register for free access to this tool but in return I request that you provide me with feedback so I can continue to punish my friends with requests for any bug fixes and improved functionality. In the meantime I will continue to bring more device models online, let me know if you would like Lexmark laser printers next or Hewlett Packard inkjets.

If you do choose to use this tool there is a Help menu at the top right of the Search page that explains its functionality. Now if you are prone to complaining, just remember this is just getting off the desktop and will continue to improve based on constructive feedback.

Here is the temporary link to the tool; I will eventually be moving it to a permanent URL.

Page Cost Calculator

The Americans

In 1973, as the Vietnam War came to an end America was under attack from both within and without. The barage of negative sentiment and press inspired Gordon Sinclair, the dean of Canadian broadcasting to write the following for his June 5, 1973 morning broadcast. After just more than 36 years I clearly remember the emotion I felt while driving in my car that morning and listening to this broadcast: it seems appropriate to post it this holiday weekend.

"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped".

Original Script Courtesy Standard Broadcasting Corporation Ltd.
Copyright 1973 by Gordon Sinclair

MPSA – Constructive or Divisive?

As I follow the numerous discussions and postings on various blogs and Linkedin groups I cannot help but wonder if this new organization will promote the MPS market space, or divide the participants.

It is a fact that any organization of two or more human beings is subject to politics; the challenge is to rise above them to serve a useful and maybe even noble purpose to its constituents.

• Provide a forum for sharing of ideas
  
• Facilitate learning for the improvement of the industry
  
• Recognize and promote best practices
  
• Create standards for the protection of end-user clients
  
• Promote fair business practices between manufacturers, vendors and end-user clients
  
• Combine resources to promote growth of the entire marketplace
  

There are many personal and corporate agendas being interjected into these communications. Not only should this be expected but the competition benefits all of us in the end. However, with that said there are several underlying themes which I personally find disturbing and disruptive to the value and growth of this association and the market space in general.

Throughout is an arrogance that there is a higher calling to service-centric sales strategy than a hardware- or supplies-centric one. Many of the folks who appear to be central to this new association are setting themselves on a pedestal above "lesser" industry participants. While I personally believe in the service-centric approach and do not wish to go back in time to selling hardware, I recognize there are a lot of value-laden dealers who do business with great integrity, provide their clients with excellent service and create a large number of very good-paying jobs.

Related though somewhat separate is the theme that the traditional copier dealer and their sales professionals are intrinsically dishonest and stupid! Copier dealers have been providing a high-level of managed print services through facilities management programs for many years. In addition, most offer page acquisition models equal to the print management programs I experience in the field. They provide supplies, fix/repair services, technology refreshment and usage reporting for a fixed cost per page. Let me ask how that is significantly different than the vast majority of so-called print management programs? I must also ask the question "if copier dealers should get into MPS for higher margins then how are they currently gouging their clients?"

Both themes were epitomized by the recent discussion about a relationship between the new MPSA and the BTA. The BTA has transformed over the years to accommodate changes in the market it serves; like Tom Callinan I remember when it was NOMDA and largely populated by calculator and typewriter dealers. Over the years it evolved to play a significant role in building the copier industry and continued to change to adopt the transition to digital technologies and yes, even managed print services. I remember discussions with them to develop managed print services training in 2005 and they have actually been sponsoring training events for the past couple of years. The real point I want to make is not about the value of a relationship or association, but the underlying arrogance and divisiveness that arose in these discussions.

It is my honest opinion (IMHO) that if the MPSA is going to promote the MPS market space then it should embrace all industry participants as potential "converts" rather than the continual piling of some less than civil discourse upon them. I certainly hope this type of posting and discussion is no longer commended and recommended by the association leadership! These individuals and companies can be represented as the iceberg below the water line while the "San Antonio" gathering is that small and visible portion.

Rather than forming an inward-facing print-centric circle holding hands and singing Kum Bah Ya I hope the MPSA turns around and puts their collective hands outward to welcome all of the participants in this industry. This is what will enable this association to reach a "noble" purpose.