We often come across very well meaning people in our line of work; people who want to save paper, who care about the environment and who genuinely want to ‘print less’.

The challenge though is they often have little to no understanding of the capabilities of the machines that exist in their organisation or the different features they can use to make ‘printing less’ a reality.

A good example we came across recently was a real estate business that used the same form for all their clients when renting/selling a property. Since it was such a widely used form, with very few edits ever, the real estate agents could have stored the form on its printers for easy access and use. This functionality was never taught to anyone so instead time intensive manual processes were used each time a new contract was needed.

We often come across examples like these because those people who frequently use the printers are not the same people who buy the printers. It’s a very common occurrence that an IT department will buy a new machine because of its advanced features and capabilities. But no-one ever teaches the receptionist or office manager what these features are.

So companies are left with highly capable machines, with staff that are not capable of using them to their full potential.

The benefit of moving to a managed print approach is staff can be provided with ongoing support and training that can help reveal the hidden gems of the printers in the office. These include how to set double sided printing as default, how to store regular forms on the printer for easy printing and how to set up personal “in-trays” for various staff across the business.

There’s little point in investing in the latest technology the benefits this can deliver without recognising who is going to be using these machines and the skills that may or may not exist.