What should growing businesses consider before upgrading their office technology?

Workplace technology is typically replaced when it fails at the worst possible time, a supplier stops supporting it or as part of a new office fit-out. These situations are typically assessed against the price of a proposed replacement solution.

The easiest way to view a device upgrade is as a procurement exercise. Even better, view it with key metrics or performance indicators that in many cases you would already be using for similar purchases. The key evidence to gather is covered in the next section, followed by how you turn that into specific specifications for printer buying, and then finally how you compare costs to reach your final purchasing decision.

Establish what the current fleet actually does

A business should always rely on real numbers (either historical or actively collected) and never on mere perceptions. It is so easy to forget the occasional jam that occurred months ago when a printer was used only 10% of its capacity.

Metrics worth extracting first

• Monthly page volumes per device, split by mono and colour, over at least twelve months to capture seasonality
• Duty cycle utilisation against the manufacturer’s recommended monthly volume
• Scan and fax counts, which often reveal that a device is used as a capture point rather than a print point
• Fault and service call history, including mean time between incidents
• Consumable consumption and the actual cost per page, not the rated yield on the box

The exercise typically reveals more to the organisation about how equipment is utilised than first perceived. It often highlights an imbalance in utilisation between loaded and idle devices. Needless to say, purchasing seven new copies of underutilised devices of the same type will only aggravate the problem.

Specify against workflow, not feature lists

It’s not hard to compare the specs of different pieces of hardware but this is usually pretty irrelevant if the surrounding document process is broken. What happens to a document before it’s printed and after it’s printed is far more important.

The processing of invoices arriving in paper form at the finance department and having to be manually keyed into the accounting system is another example. In this case, the ability of a printer to do Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of a printed document and to feed this data automatically into the finance system is much more important than the print speed of a printer.

Questions that change the specification

1. Which documents must remain physical for legal, client or regulatory reasons, and which are printed out of habit?
2. Where does a document currently get re-entered by hand into another system?
3. Which teams need finishing such as stapling, booklet folding or large format, and how often?
4. What volume of scanning goes to shared drives versus a document management platform?

Treat connectivity and security as procurement requirements

Modern multifunctional printers are fully functional Networked Print Devices comprising local and networked file storage, an Operating System with embedded Web Server functions, managed via a Browser interface. These devices typically require more maintenance and patching than other devices on the Network. Treat them as you would servers and laptops.

Controls to write into the requirement

• Encrypted hard drives with secure erase at end of lease or disposal
• User authentication at the device, through PIN or card, with pull printing so documents do not sit in output trays
• Support for current network protocols and the ability to disable legacy ones
• A documented firmware update path and a stated support window
• Audit logging that integrates with your existing monitoring

The impact of hybrid work arrangements and cloud print services also needs to be taken into account. Because most new print functions are based in the cloud, print servers in the workplace will largely be a thing of the past. Users are often unaware that it takes only one faulty printer to generate a host of problem reports with a service provider that cannot be remedied by any SLA.

Compare acquisition models on total operating cost

Purchase price is the least of your problems when buying to last 5 years. The cost of the consumables (excess pages in particular), service and maintenance, finance charges, and administrative overhead are usually many times the purchase price and can vary widely from one model to another.

Where the hidden costs sit

Excess page charges, annual price increases, minimum charges to be paid regardless of usage, and penalties for early termination are some examples of hidden costs. Because those terms differ so much between vendors, it is worth shortlisting suppliers who publish clear service inclusions alongside their range of office printers in Australia before you commit to a term. Ask for guaranteed response times and for loan equipment to be supplied in case of extended faults. Are there any charges for additional copies in addition to the contract price? Is there a surcharge for copying very small quantities? How long does it take to deliver spare parts? Is there an engineer available 24/7?

Plan for the volume you will have, not the volume you have

However, growth in headcount does not automatically translate into growth in printed pages, particularly if new employees work largely digitally. Therefore, even when you expect to grow, you should model out at least two scenarios, growth in headcount with corresponding growth in printed pages, and decline in printed pages. Which acquisition model will fare worst?

Staging the rollout

Assess providers to deploy the hardware in stages, (starting with the most unreliable, or largest user), test all key features, including driver deployment, authentication and output scan destinations. Such a staged roll-out also will allow for fallback to older hardware for several months and give your team an excellent basis for negotiating better terms for the remainder of required devices.