enx magazine

Print Audit     ANALYZE REDUCE RECOVER

With offices in 6 different countries, Print Audit is the fastest growing print management company in the world.  Print Audit develops comprehensive print management solutions that help office equipment dealers sell more hardware while helping their clients save money.     

For many, ‘print management’ has become a catch phrase for anything relating to monitoring and accessing an enduser’s clicks.  There is considerable confusion between print management and fleet management solutions.

Fleet management (or device management) solutions are used to collect meter reads on imaging devices and perform service functions such as supplies management and service history tracking. 

In contrast, a comprehensive print management solution such as Print Audit 5 allows organizations to capture and control every print job that occurs in an environment.  Print Audit 5 also enables organizations to control who can print to where and can be used to alter user behavior by setting printing limits, restricting color usage and forcing duplexing. 

"We are selling more equipment since we started using Print Audit.  We used to win 50 to 60 percent of the contracts we bid on, now it's above 80."

- Ken Stewart, Kearns Business Solutions   

 The Print Audit 5 suite is comprised of 3 components called Analysis, Reduction and Recovery.  These products can be powerful revenue-generating and cost-saving tools that can benefit any dealer or organization.   

 Print Audit Analysis enables the dealer to sell more equipment by optimizing its client’s print strategy.  Many dealers are already conducting rapid print assessment audits using USB-based tools such as the Print Audit Rapid Assessment Key.  Some users are under the impression that this is all that is needed to perform a thorough print analysis.   Rapid assessment is very useful for capturing an instant snapshot of the print environment.  Often, it is the sales rep’s way to interest the customer in an in-person appointment.  However, a rapid assessment only scratches the surface of uncovering the equipment sales opportunities.  

The Print Audit Assessor is a special version of Print Audit Analysis that is specifically designed to allow office equipment dealers to perform a more detailed, time-limited silent print analysis.  This is accomplished using software that is installed into individual workstations at a customer’s site, enabling ongoing tracking. 

Analyzing all printing at the desktop level allows you to analyze all of the devices at a client’s site, including local, networked and direct-to-IP printers.  Historically, desktop printers are the most expensive to run.  It is important to monitor how these devices are being used.  Big surprises often come out of an analysis of this type of printing.

Are your customers printing to their inkjet printers instead of your multi-function device?  A rapid assessment tool won’t reveal this type of information.  A comprehensive print analysis using a client-based tool such as the Print Audit Assessor will. 

The Print Audit Assessor will gather valuable workflow information to help answer questions such as:  Who is printing the most?  Where are they printing?   What size and types of jobs are they printing?  When are they printing? Are printing bottlenecks slowing down production?

Without this workflow information, it is very difficult to determine which devices are currently being misused.  Having a clear picture of the current usage will reinforce your proposals regarding new equipment and any other warranted changes.

An in-depth print assessment provides reporting that details what the current state of printing looks like in your client’s environment.  This can then be used to calculate what will be gained (saved) by implementing changes.  Dealers are able to make proposals based on their clients real print data, rather than generic, one-size-fits-all industry statistics.

Print Audit Reduction directs volumes to your device, reducing your client’s cost.  Through periodic auditing of the client’s usage, the dealer can ensure that newly installed equipment is being used to its full potential; maximizing prints directed to equipment that is on your cost-per-copy program.

Many dealers consistently under-estimate the amount of clicks they are losing to their competitor’s devices.   After a recent thorough analysis, a large office equipment dealer discovered that their printers were receiving 20 percent of their customers’ volumes.  Prior to the analysis, they had assumed they were capturing nearly 60 percent of the print traffic. 

The problem is one of human nature – people will print to their convenience printer, rather than the device best suited for the job.  Instead of assuming that you are getting most of a client’s volumes — ensure that you are by putting a “gatekeeper” in place, to monitor and alter user behavior.

Print Audit Reduction can help to change the printing habits of users and encourage them to make better printing decisions.  For example, if a user tries to print a large print job to their personal printer, a popup window can encourage or force them to print to your more efficient, multi-function device instead.

Providing your clients with control increases their return on investment.  Your clients are more likely to buy a color device if they know that it won’t be abused.  A Print Audit tool will provide your customers with a variety of cost-saving options.  For example, they can configure Print Audit Reduction to force users to print on both sides of the page when printing to certain devices.  The software can also be configured to disallow color printing from specific individuals or to disallow black and white printing on color devices.

Print Audit Reduction is a win-win situation for the dealer and the client.  For this reason, many dealers have begun bundling print reduction tools with their devices to ensure that they are being used to their fullest potential.  Those dealers who are utilizing print management tools are quickly taking over entire accounts.

Print Audit Recovery helps overcome sales objections and adds value to your proposals.  The traditional cost recovery program of professional service firms, such as architects, engineers, law firms, realtors and advertising agencies, is actually a profit center for the client.  These firms typically charge their clients (users) 5 to 10 times their actual cost for printing and photocopying expenses.

Surprisingly, many of these companies still calculate out-of-pocket expenses by manually logging print jobs with a clipboard kept by the printer/plotter.  This method has proven to be very inaccurate and difficult to verify.  Case studies have shown that employees simply forget to record the data up to 80 percent of the time.

Print Audit enables any dealership to take advantage of cost-recovery opportunities, to overcome sales objections and to add value to proposals.  In many cases, the ROI is so significant, the dealer is able to help the client generate enough additional revenues to literally pay for all the costs of the new equipment.  Print Audit Recovery can automate a client’s charge-back process by automatically recording printing and photocopying costs and integrating the data directly into accounting and billing packages. 

Getting Started

Have you been missing out on many of the benefits that a print management solution can provide?  The good news is that Print Audit 5 is easy to get up and running, without any formal training.  Contact Print Audit today for your free trial. u by Ronelle Ingram

Contact Info

Print Audit

www.printaudit.com

North America: 1-877-41-AUDIT (28348)

International: +1-403-685-4932