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IT reducing burden of print - coworkers working around computer

Reduce the burden of print and make IT more innovative

by Ken Weilerstein
 
As technology continues to advance, more pressure is put on IT departments to support a wider variety of business objectives. In “The Changing Role of IT in the Future of Business,” Daniel Newman notes, “IT departments are experiencing tremendous changes as their roles expand to impact customer service, sales, and even business strategies. As a result, organizations are increasingly turning IT into a driving force in all aspects of business.”1
 
In fact, organizations now view IT as a driving force of innovation — today, IT departments are expected to be more versatile and agile when it comes to using new technologies that can help companies take advantage of growth opportunities. Unfortunately, even when IT departments manage and maintain an on-premises print infrastructure and are responsible for the day-to-day demands of maintaining and supporting their printers, they're expected to work on strategic business objectives at the same time, and usually without an increase in head count.
 
Moving your print infrastructure to the cloud can free up IT resources, letting you utilize them to support more value-driven business goals.
 

Eliminate print to free up time and labor

Most IT departments would welcome a more efficient approach to print management. However, many are reluctant to begin the work it would take to optimize their infrastructure, which includes:

  • Mapping out their current needs and resources
  • Testing and validating unfamiliar software
  • Training their staff to implement and support the new services

All of this time and effort doesn’t even begin to cover other tasks that come with maintaining a local print infrastructure — like resetting print queues and rebooting print servers. When printing issues demand the attention of managers, you start to realize that offloading print management to the cloud may be a better option.

Without the need to manage print, IT employees have more time to enhance and expand their skill sets so they can support a larger variety of business objectives. According to Newman, “Reskilling existing teams will be necessary to maintain agility, so it’s important to construct a team of employees who can handle the peaks and valleys of business.”2 In other words, your IT employees need time to train on new technologies so they can continuously become more capable of supporting business strategies.

 

Clear the way to innovation by reducing print costs

By reducing company owned-and-operated print assets, you free up funds that can be used for more strategic business purposes. In fact, many enterprises have already saved on printing costs by systematically optimizing the printers themselves — but they tend to spend more on print management software. Moving the responsibility offsite to a pay-as-you go cloud service is an easy way to reduce the cost of this software. Plus, the money you save can help your IT managers meet cost-cutting objectives or help pay for skunkworks projects that bring innovative ideas to fruition.
If you are open to new ways to reduce your responsibility for managing print, Ricoh can help you do this with RICOH Print Platform Cloud Service — a scalable, fully-managed cloud environment that provides a consistent user experience, can easily grow with your company and offers an easy-to-manage, monthly per-user subscription fee.

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Author Icon
Ken Weilerstein, Advanced Services Strategy Senior Manager, Managed Print Services, Ricoh USA Inc., joined Ricoh in 2017, bringing 32 years of experience in the IT and imaging industries. He is responsible for Ricoh’s Advanced Services domain for MPS. Ken recently led Gartner’s research on Managed Print Services and Managed Content Services, and advised the company’s 15,000 end user clients on MPS and office printer management. As analyst, VP Research and agenda manager at Gartner, Ken authored reports for printer manufacturers on how to grow and shape their MPS and service portfolios. He also published reports for end users on MPS, such as the Magic Quadrant for Managed Print and Content Services, and on software and technology trends. He presented at Gartner’s Symposia, and launched and hosted Gartner’s Print and Imaging Summit. Ken also spoke to an average of three end-user clients daily.
 
 

1 Daniel Newman, "The Changing Role Of IT In The Future Of Business" Forbes, July 26, 2016.

2 Daniel Newman, "The Changing Role Of IT In The Future Of Business" Forbes, July 26, 2016.