The Datamax Thinking Blog

Paired with a barrage of potential threats, yet brimming with productive potential, technology plays an intimate role in the routines of today’s business workday. When well harnessed, it can unlock unforeseen competitive advantages.

Henry Ford once said, "I don't read history. That's in the past. I'm thinking of the future."

Ford, of course, was the Michigan-born engineer who developed a petrol-driven quadricycle into a small car; this proved the basis for the famous Model T motor car introduced in 1908. Just as Ford’s ingenuity forever transformed the auto industry, technology has been a driving force in business transformation for years.

As we look at the state of technology as it relates to business in 2019, Ford’s quote has a profound foreshadowing effect.

From document workflow, network security to print management and many things in between, our intent is to serve as a vehicle for helping YOU maximize YOUR technology investment.

Technology, much like life, moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

We, the dedicated scribes of the Datamax Thinking Blog, certainly don’t want our readers to miss it. We work hard each year to contemplate, to evaluate and, ultimately, educate on many of the moving parts of an ever-changing business technology landscape. From document workflow, network security to print management and many things in between, our intent is to serve as a vehicle for helping YOU maximize YOUR technology investment.

In the report, 36 percent of enterprises surveyed say they are printing MORE OFTEN than they were 12 months ago, while only 14 percent are printing less often. Similarly, 40 percent are scanning more often and 35 percent are copying more often.

By 2020, Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group predicts that 50 billion physical IoT devices will be connected to the Internet, consuming, generating, and communicating data. The office is no exception.

Crucial documents reside on our desks and file cabinets, but also in cloud servers and mobile devices. With such wide and easy access to the information we need, it’s tempting to think that printing may soon become a function of the past.

As ESPN analyst Lee Corso famously says on College Football Game Day, “Not so fast, my friend!”

Buying one, centralized multifunction printer for your office will save money, right? It's not as simple as that.

Centralizing your multifunction copiers makes a lot of sense. You don't need to buy multiple machines to cover all of the departments, the IT team can easily network and troubleshoot them, and you won't have employees wandering around trying to figure out where to get their copies.

This configuration works out great, in theory. In practice, you could end up with the MFP becoming the de facto water cooler. When staff makes their way to the digital copier to pick up their papers, they may take a socialization trip at the same time.

You'll have a tough time delivering a quality customer experience if they have to wait around while you're on a grand adventure for hard copies.

Hard copy documents are talented at hiding away when you need them the most. You have to go on an office safari every time to track them, which cuts into the time you could spend on your work duties. Even a few minutes per day adds up. It's time to throw paper in the trash and get digital with your documents.

If you want to successfully manage your company's information technology, the key is to plan thoroughly and completely.

You shouldn't have to be able to print money to afford your business's printers and office equipment. Yet, all too often, it seems like that is what many businesses have to do to afford their office equipment.

The easy excuse is to blame the rapid pace of technology and the unavoidable expenses of keeping up with the latest and the best. After all, it seems like technology is only good for about six months before it becomes obsolete and you have to replace it.

In the end all that is an excuse. If you want to successfully manage your company's information technology, the key is to plan thoroughly and completely. There are reasons why there are numerous clichés about the benefits of planning first to avoid the high costs of mistakes later. When it comes to IT, it is best to pay attention to those annoying, but true, words to live by.

If you focus on the number on the price tag more than what the photocopier can actually do for you, you'll end up paying more in the long run.

You have to operate with a budget professionally and personally. The same questions come up no matter what you're buying. How much should it cost, where can you find the best deals, and is there a more affordable way to get it?

Many people jump right to the cheapest copier they can find. They think it might match their needs, but their decision is purely price driven. Sometimes they luck out and get the right model with good build quality. Years from now, they're calling the copier "old reliable" and patting themselves on the back for their money-saving move.

However, this is not the case for most people.

Also known as one-to-one marketing, VDP allows you to use rules and pieces of content in a database to create marketing individualized to a group of customers down to a single customer.

“Hey. You there, here's a product you might be interested in. Maybe.”

That's not really a line that's going to inspire anyone to buy from you, much less customer loyalty. Yet that's what a lot marketing looks like – dull, uninspired, careless, and often so broad that no one knows it's for them.

Who wants to be on the receiving end of that? As a business, is that the kind of marketing you want to be sending to your customers and prospects?

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. If you don’t know how much you print, then you don’t know how much you’re spending on print – in either time or with your budget.

A commonly used and accepted statistic based on research from industry analyst Gartner is that you can save up to 30% of your printing costs by partnering with a managed print services (MPS) provider. 

But what does that number mean? It’s so abstract. And what are some of the hidden printing costs? 

Here are 8. 

With print rules, you can establish different rules for different roles within your office so that they can meet their legitimate printing needs.

As we interact with information more and more online (PC, tablets, and phones); we still need to print documents to paper. The question becomes not if you need to print, but how do you print documents to:

• Improve print efficiency – and productivity of employees
• Save money
• Meet any green initiatives

Printing rules, combined with an office-wide print strategy and policy, will help you achieve all three of those goals. Printing rules are based on conditions and consequences and designed to create effective user printing behavior. These rules are set using print management software. With print rules, you can establish different rules for different roles within your office so that they can meet their legitimate printing needs.