COVID-19 has set off a global pandemic the likes of which most of us have never seen in our lifetime. Millions of people have been personally affected by illness or loss of work, or both, and the world economy has taken a massive hit to the tune of trillions of dollars in lost output.
Fortunately, the most important things we can do to respond are well underway – such as social distancing to fight the spread of the disease. As with other catastrophic events in human history, we will move past this.
Moving forward, our greatest challenges will be to prevent a resurgence of the virus, and perhaps more dauntingly, to repair the severe economic damage the virus has wrought.
Becoming More Efficient
Besides the obvious need to overhaul the public health system, the virus has also highlighted the need for a greater focus on cost efficiencies which will allow our businesses, and our lives, to continue with less disruption if we encounter something similarly calamitous in the future.
As business activity resumes, organizations will be looking for ways to patch the holes in their bottom lines. In fact, Fortune 500 companies such as Twitter are using this time of slowed business activity to strategically reevaluate IT systems in order to mitigate wasteful expenditures in the future.
That is wonderful news because if organizations are going to return to profitability without mass layoffs of workers then they must implement better systems to contain costs immediately.
Getting Started
There are numerous opportunities to do that. And, one of the primary considerations for any organization should be to partner with an experienced managed print services (MPS) provider that can optimize their IT systems, and more specifically, their print environment.
MPS engagements can be complex, so it’s important to find a partner with the tools to demystify the data.
Consider the following ways that a professional MPS provider will help reduce an organization’s costs, whether those costs are monetary, time, or something else:
- Reduce IT service calls to free up IT resources to focus on more important initiatives
- Right-size printer fleets to avoid costly redundancies and inefficiencies
- Automate supplies orders so that printers remain operational
- Lower corporate environmental impact to preserve the future
- Enhancing security of devices and the network to prevent costly fraud
- Remote monitoring and troubleshooting of printer fleets to maximize uptime
Looking Ahead
It has been said that you don’t know what you don’t know, and the reality is that about 90% of organizations do not have a complete picture of their print environments and associated costs.
As we enter this new world, it is essential to not only have robust business solutions in place and the data to back those solutions, but more importantly, the ability to understand the data – something an experienced MPS provider would certainly be able to assist with.
Keeping that in mind, let us return to work with renewed vigor.
Streamlining business processes such as a printer ecosystem may not sound terribly exciting, but the potential impact should not be understated.
Cost intelligence in individual organizations is synonymous with improving the economy at-large. It means shoring up people’s jobs, and by extension, improving their lives.
Exciting or not, it is the seemingly insignificant things we do that can make or shatter the bigger picture.
This blog originally appeared on the Toshiba website. Click here to read more about the latest in managed print, document security, digital signage and environmental efficiency.
