Green IT

Will the real MPS please stand up!

2010-07-03T09:06:00.001-07:00

The more I look the more I am coming to the belief that the number of companies that actually understand what a real MPS is are very, very few.

From my own research I find a huge number of people talking about and offering to provide an MPS service but when you lift the lid what you find is still a simple 'pay for page' or ‘click charge’ offering with nothing else behind it but wrapped in some nice MPS marketing.

When are we going to get some sort of clear understanding that to provide an MPS you have to be able to fully understand not only the print side (hardware, supplies and service) but also the network side (drivers, operating systems, help desk support, desk side support at a network and local level) The document side (applications, document management, scan to archive, business document process, work flow), the user side (Accessibility, functionality, habits, wants, needs, wishes, emotions), The Finance side (reduced purchasing resources, full visibility of all services, audited cost savings, comprehensive SLA’s covering guaranteed cost savings with planned future reduction in print volumes and costs, planned annual device rightsizing over the contract period and simplified exit stratagy) and most important of all help, guidance and support to integrate the print (MFP) platforms into the clients business processes to increase efficiency and cost effectiveness of all paper or digital document workflow.

This requires the provider (and the client) to have a full understanding of where they are, where they want to be and how they intend to get there.

To use a well known saying, “An MPS engagement should be a long and profitable journey (for both parties) not just a final destination”.

The MPS objective strategy

2010-07-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

A Managed Print Services strategy requires a clear definition of the objectives to be achieved from both parties.

The Organisation

One of the key steps in any MPS project is to identify the key stakeholders and information holders that need to be involved. Typically you will need to include IT, Purchasing, Legal, Finance, Facilities, Users groups and maybe HR but you need to make sure you are covering and including the following.

Who owns the budgets for funding an MPS
Who will benefit from the savings of an MPS
Who will be involved in implementing an MPS
Who will be affected by the installation of an MPS
Who will be the Sponsor for the project.

Most vendors view that the objective is simply to replace the existing devices on your network with their (newer) devices. That is not an MPS strategy. From your point of view, a managed print services strategy should include discussion of some or all of these points:

Identify your clients objectives

How will the MPS provide improved access to information
Improve quality of customer-facing documents
Cost effectively incorporate color in business documents
limit unnecessary colour usage
Ensure Compliance, Regulatory, Security
Streamline document and business processes and increase user efficiency
Develop processes that are concurrent instead of linear
Right-size and right-purpose the output fleet
Control supply costs
Control supply inventory-provide just in time supply
Automate meter reporting of devices with audit trail
Contain provisions for proactive service to reduce or eliminate downtime
Manage the lifecycle of output devices
Provide for business changes (department downsizing or relocation, new projects, new feature requirements, device types not already in vendors portfolio)
Reduce or eliminate desktop printing
Provide cost effective print output based upon rules and permissions
Decrease waste/environmental impact
Develop an ongoing review schedule to measure, manage, and improve

The next part of the process is to measure actual hard costs involved in the output of documents. This baseline assessment is used as the starting point for developing your document print strategy and the eventual vendor’s savings proposal. Information gathered during this step should include:

Measure your current status

Page counts from the various output devices (covering mono pages, colour pages, mono pages on colour devices, average coverage and use of duplex and multi-up printing)
Number of users using each of the devices
Waking time to and from printers based on daily document printing
Print volumes by departments or user groups.
Document (print jobs) page lengths as percentages
Application print volume
Print time peaks and lows
Reliability or single points of failures in existing system
Waste prints left on machines (never collected print outs)
Current practices on toner ordering, stocking and changing.
Specifics of device maintenance (handled internally, outsourced)
Purchase Order and Invoice process
Document output trends within the business
Help desk calls relevant to print issues (order by severity and repetition)
Determine monthly down time by device

According to Gartner Research, only 30% of office document costs relate to equipment, supplies and service. For every 100 Kr spent on equipment, supplies and service, another 333 Kr is spent on overhead costs such as IT and helpdesk support, infrastructure, procurement, end user time, and management expense. Analyzing the data collected requires a high degree of understanding how print works. Without this knowledge the print assessment will likely focus on the hardware technology and not your business needs. After collecting the data, the following areas should be examined:

Analyse the data

Determine the average monthly volume on the various devices
Determine the average monthly volume on the various devices by user
Determine the average monthly volume on the various devices by application
Define the supply and maintenance costs using factors determined during the measurement process
Determine current service needs
Obtain input from end users through use of a survey to determine their satisfaction with current products and process.
Obtain input from end users through use of a survey to determine their print requirements for their business processes and document types.
Locate areas for process improvement by meeting with departmental managers and end users of the devices
Present a facts based analysis of the current environment

Based upon the print services strategy defined above, use the data to determine ways that processes can be improved. Some of the improvements that could become a part of the recommendations are:

Explore document management (imaging) as a method of increasing customer service as well as meeting compliance, regulatory, or security needs and as a way to reduce print output and waste

Improve your print structure

Define departmental print needs and device requirements
Place all print devices in an all-inclusive management program
Define supplies, service and support processes
Identify and retire legacy or problem prone devices
Develop a process to manage color output, moving output to networked and managed devices that can also incorporate color control capabilities
Define any requirement exceptions that cannot be handled under or should be excluded from an MPS
Optimize the total number of devices, models, vendors, etc.
Increase device utilization by right-sizing and right-purposing the fleet
Define user rights of access to device by distance, availability, features and cost

Continuous monitoring and ongoing measurement is required to ensure that services, products and processes are meeting the defined benchmarks. The goals of Managed Print Services should be to reduce total costs, reduce the amount of printing, reduce the number of devices, reduce the number of manufacturers and models, and to reduce the number of vendors. All of this results in control of costs and continuous improvement of processes. Some of the items to be considered:

Review and control

Service Level Agreements (measurement of uptime, first call effectiveness, etc.)
Automated measurement and reporting (agreed reports at agreed time spans)
Scheduled meetings between the partners to discuss challenges and opportunities to explore latest trends
A commitment to education programs (could include device function, document management, management software, new technologies, document flow etc,)
Continuous development of the partnership

10 questions to ask yourself if you’re thinking about a Managed print service.

2010-07-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

Often when talking with customers about Managed Print Service offerings I am surprised how many of them have little or no information about their own real print infrastructure, its costs or its impact on business processes, other than what their vendors tell them after doing a quick audit. So before you start talking to your print and copier suppliers about a managed print service here are some questions you really need to ask yourself (and be able to answer truthfully).

1.How much do you really know about your print infrastructure?

Just counting the pages or printers is nowhere near enough information to be able to even start evaluating MPS offerings. You need to know why they are there, who is using them and what for. Only then can you see what the impact from an MPS vendors offer and if the change will be good or bad.

2.How much do you know about your real print costs?

Using the manufacturers ‘best guess’ average page coverage and cost to work out your print expenses just is not enough. Document types and styles are changing; the average web page and PDF document uses far more toner today due to graphics, fonts and colour. You need to know where all the costs are if you are to correctly calculate the real savings from an MPS offering. (A portion of them will be your printers, their supplies, paper, service, support, but also you need to include people and business processes.) How do you measure user time, helpdesk costs, server and workstation driver support?

3.How much do you know about how print affects your business documents and business processes?

Which are really valuable to your business, which are just day to day and which are pure waste? Even today business documents are still the life blood of a company. Buying a MPS is the first step towards Document Automation and Management, how will you know if the MPS you are buying will help you or hinder you when you start to implement document management.

4.Who own the costs, who own the budgets and who will benefit from the savings

Print costs are spread across your entire company. If you are to successfully evaluate a vendors proposition you need to know where these are and who owns them and how are they measured because they are critical to question 5.

5.Who needs to be in the decision process

IT, Facilities, Finance, Purchasing, Focus user group, HR and Sponsor are some do you have more?

6.How much effort and time for how much return?

Typically savings from new processes follow the 70/30 rule. This is the last 30% of the ‘savings’ requires 70% of the effort, time, work, focus, change etc. Quite often Vendors assume that you will be happy with only the 70% savings and not try for the last 30% due to the amount of work required. This may even be true in your case, but that was not what you asked for when issued the tender! Ask your vendors for breakdowns on how your savings will be achieved and over what time and with how much effort. What are your limitations? When will you stop chasing savings? Have you identified your own 70/30 position?

7.Do you have any print or MPS skills in-house?

How much preparation work can you do before asking in the vendors? How will you be able to check the vendor’s figures are accurate? How much resources will need to be allocated for this project. Who will project lead and liaise day to day with the vendors during the assessment, the proposal, the implementation, and the critical first 6 months

8.How will outsourcing your print affect your other IT services

Print is more than just the paper and hardware. Your printers will need drivers loaded and updated on the workstations. Drivers loaded and updated on the servers. Print management software hooked into your network and possibly requiring remote secure access. Who will own the help desk? How will the MPS help desk interface with your IT helpdesk.

9.What do you tell the users?

When you start working with vendors on an MPS project they will need to audit your existing print environment. This will mean they will come into contact with your users (or they should if the are doing a true audit) who will require an explanation of what is being planned and what the changes will mean to them and to their work processes. Failure to communicate clearly with the user community can cause serious delays to a project.

10.How will you measure the success of the MPS system you buy during the 1st year of its operation?

When you have chosen and implemented your MPS system how will you measure that the vendor is delivering all the savings and the services promised. What milestones will you set for your vendor? What tools will you use to keep track that they are delivering? What power will you have to force your vendor to deliver what was agreed?

One further question you should really include is how you will exit your contract with your chosen MPS vendor. An MPS contract is much like a marriage and come the end it can turn into a very nasty divorce unless you make sure you have clear agreements as to when it ends, how it ends, who owns the equipment (that includes HW, supplies, drivers, software, spares, servers, call history, audit trails etc) and the clean passover of all information to you or your next MPS vendor. Failure to define a clear exit stratagy could leave you with additional costs (just google some of the copier lease stories) that you may not be able to afford.

MPS Managed Print System or Managed Phone System?

2010-06-29T04:59:00.000-07:00

Would you buy a Managed phone system the same way you buy a Managed print system?

If a consultant came into your company and said:

“Let us manage your phones system and we can reduce your phone costs by 40% to 50%.” “Because of our expertise its easy for us to see that in every office there sits a phone on ever desk; most are used less than 12% per day.” Their Solution is simple and very cost effective: “You have too many phones, each one is costing you a fortune, you have no control over how they are used and the number of wasted calls is rising every year adding to your uncontrolled costs. Let us take over that responsibility, we will manage your phones and through our expertise we will make it more cost effective!” and to prove it they ask if they can do a quick ‘free’ audit to show just how much you could save!

So (based on a quick add up of your last months calls), 5 weeks later they are back in your office showing you charts and graphs and pages of data which they say proves that your costs are out of control and far higher than they should be or you expected.

They can, they say, remove around 20% of the fixed costs and another 20% of the soft costs in running the phone system.
This will, over time, give you a total savings of 40% and possibly more in the future.
Full reporting system showing where costs and ‘some’ of the savings are coming from.
Simple budgeting (one bill per month for all calls from all phones, But can be itemised by phone or user if required).
All Phones will be replaced with new ones, operated, programmed, managed, serviced and new phone help desk will be set up and manned, all under the simple low cost monthly click contract.
SLA’s to guarantee 99% operational time of all phones.
Total call management using user Swipe ID cards identifying user, call, cost, duration and location.

What they will do for you is:

Remove all personal phones from all employees’ desks
Centralise phones banks around work areas in common corridors or small rooms

1 green phone for internal @ rate of .01€c per call minute, (min 10 000 minutes per month)
1 black phone for local outside calls @ .05€c per call minute (min 20 000 minutes per month)
1 red phone for international € rate of .25€c per call minute. (min 10 000 minutes per month)

If a user uses an international or local phone for internal calls they will be charged at international or local rates
All calls will go through our telephone service exchange (for itemised billing info) this may cause a small delay in connection but rarely causes (us) a problem
For all calls over 10 minutes users will be redirected to use the super low cost phones on the 3rd floor. (Or they will be billed a surcharge)
Incoming calls will be held until the user identifies them selves through the use of the swipe card at any phone bank. Then all calls waiting will be listed for the user to scroll through until they find the one they want and then connect to.

All you have to do is sign the contract and they will do the rest

Now does this sound something you would like to implement in your company?

NO?

So why would you want to do it if they just replace the word phone with the word printer!

For many people the savings indicated on side of the Managed Print services box from the major manufacturers are so large that they forget to look into the box right down to the bottom to find out how it’s arrived at. This is I suppose not a surprise as most people do not really understand their existing print system, its complicated, it covers all aspects of their business, too many people own bits of it and they have no real holistic visibility of it. So the smoke and mirrors marketing put in front of them can be very appealing.

But before you sign that MPS document think again!.

Printing and the Environment

2010-06-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

As organisations in Sweden look for more ways of reducing their environmental impact, Green IT seems to be a major area of interest. The Kammarkollegiet (gov think tank) recently commissioned Naturvårdsverket (EPA) to develop a proposal for a Green IT environment action plan for the public sector.However when reviewing available reports from their recent web presentation, office printing seems to be very low on their priorities which is strange if you consider the data below.

According to research from InfoTrends, 779 billion sheets of paper were used in homes and offices across Western Europe in 2008. HP estimates that 53 trillion pages will be printed worldwide in 2010 alone.

Gartner, IDC, Xerox, Lexmark, etc estimate that the average office worker (banks, government, Lawyers, accountants, Insurance) print around 10 000 pages per year.

Of these 10 000 pages, only around 40% actually leave the office (are sent to clients) IDC report. The remaining 60% or 6000 pages per person per year are either filed (15% to 20%) or thrown away.

But what is the expected annual environmental and financial impact of printing in a typical organisation with 1000 computer users?

Paper consumed ....................10 000 000 sheets
Toner cartridges consumed ..............1 000 cartridges
Printers used ............................330 units
Water consumed ....................3 405 000 litres
CO2 generated ...........................6,4 Tonnes
Electricity used ) ...................610 000 Kw
Oil ...................................3 500 litres of Oil
Estimated annual financial cost . 3 400 000 Kr

Then there is the cost of recycling all that paper. How much is reused, burned or dumped? And of course the transportation costs in delivering and removing it. Now if we do this calculation for the entire office workforce of Sweden the figures would be frightening!

Where are the savings?

__________________________

Using modern print solutions it is now possible to reduce this cost, both Financial and Environmental, however many of the solutions that are being looked at by companies (and recommended by manufacturers) will reduce the financial cost but will NOT reduce the environmental cost.

Some solutions will reduce the Environmental cost but at the expense of forcing companies into only being able to use one manufacturer’s printers across the company and this normally increasing their hardware cost. Other so called solutions that many environmental sites and environmental groups recommend just won’t work in a modern office environment without major changes to the way people work and their habits, which is both expensive, time consuming and always fails.

To be able to implement a print solution that offers both Financial and Environmental savings is actually not difficult. It does however require you know where your major financial and environmental costs are and how to reduce them without impacting your business processes or locking yourself into a path that in the long term may not suit your business.

Looking at print there are three main elements that effect cost and pollution.

The physical printing device.
The paper used to print on.
The toner used to place text and images on the paper.

All three cost money and cause pollution.

To understand the potential financial and environmental savings per 1000 employees per year, here is an example of what could be saved by applying solutions to your print infrastructure.

Paper pages saved ..........................1 500 000     or 15%

Toner cartridges not bought...................... 370     or 37%

Printers used ................................... 330     or 0%

Water saved ................................. 510 000 ltr or 15%

CO2 saved ....................................... 1.6 Tonnes 34%

Electricity saved............................ 100 000 Kw or 14%

Oil saved ..................................... 1 290 Ltr or 37%

Estimated annual financial savings......... 1 521 000 Kr or 45%

When focused on, it is easy to see that print is a huge problem and as such offers a huge opportunity to recover costs and reduce environmental damage. Print needs to be pushed onto the radar of large organisations and take its place as major polluter in the office space. It should be a significant part of Sweden’s future Green IT strategy.

It can not be left up to the printer manufacturers to develop solutions. Despite what they say they may not have the environment as their top priority.