There is a common approach to printing in small businesses: “When the printers finally break, I’ll just buy new ones.”  It’s taken in the belief that this is either the most cost effective, or only way to do it. 

Managers of small companies typically buy printers from the likes of Officeworks or Harvey Norman for low cost, however the true cost of ownership is hidden. Taking this approach means that they really don’t know the cost of each page they print and the true cost of ownership. With consumables (toner and paper), maintenance and service commonly representing up to 95% of the total cost of ownership, that ‘cheap’ printer they purchased may not have been that ‘cheap’ after all.

Also, many small businesses are often using the wrong type of printer for the job, say a low-end model not designed to handle high printloads. The result is a device working overtime, leading to both an increased cost of maintenance and a high energy bill. And more than likely they’ll need to find another solution when the printer breaks down.

So you may ask the question, how small is too small to take a managed services approach?  We think that all businesses should pay attention to printing and a business with a few devices could well benefit, with a managed print service provider giving them the right devices for the job they need to do and taking care of everything else (finance, consumables, service). And the business benefits by getting on with the running of their own business, not having to worry about the running of their printers and copiers.