Reinventing workplace productivity with Managed Print Services

Weak productivity has become one of the biggest challenges facing UK businesses today. So much so that the UK Government has made boosting performance a top policy priority across the country.

The pursuit of workplace productivity has seen many UK organisations turn to digital collaboration and automation technologies that will increase their efficiency and competitiveness. The aim of the game being to streamline processes and help teams work more effectively in a variety of ways—by eliminating productivity-sapping manual tasks, ensuring employees can access the right information at the right time and enabling real-time decision-making, for example.

By optimising processes, integrating workflows and resolving issues like siloed systems and communication disconnects, many organisations are making great strides in addressing the factors that have a big impact on workplace productivity.

But one hidden barrier is often overlooked. Yes, we’re talking about an organisation’s overall print environment.

Rethinking print with productivity in mind

As workplaces become more digital, mobile and adaptable, print continues to perform an important role. Indeed, for some business functions it’s mission critical for initiating and completing a multitude of key business transactions. Everything from generating delivery notes and invoices through to the production of inventory labels and more.

When it comes to employee productivity, ease of printing has become a top priority. That means being able to print whenever and wherever required. No easy task when cost efficiency and security represent key concerns for decision-makers.

The fact is that today’s modern and digital workplaces need versatile document management capabilities that make it easy to capture, manage, display and share information in ways that simplify how people undertake daily tasks. That means digitalising processes and aligning the organisation’s print infrastructure with operational needs to enable new, more efficient and more flexible ways of working.

And it’s challenging—especially when teams are working remotely or on the move, and need to print securely from anywhere, anyhow and using any device.

The good news is that today’s innovative managed print services (MPS) make it possible to streamline and optimise the overall print environment. All the while ensuring that organisations can both retain control of what is being printed – where and by whom – and better manage costs and the environmental impact of their print operations.

Revolutionising print in the workplace

Today’s MPS solutions really are re-writing the rules on how to make print work better.

Now, organisations can integrate their physical and digital worlds, and transform how employees print, share, store, retrieve and output information. That includes providing employees with direct access to popular cloud services like Google Drive, Google Workspace, SharePoint and Exchange Online. All of which means that out-of-office hybrid and remote workers can get work done on their handheld iOS or Android devices.

Thanks to powerful cloud-management tools, today’s MPS solutions also let users conveniently access the information, applications and workflows they need—using click-to-print options that allow them to send print jobs to cloud-connected printers and print from anywhere to anywhere. But that’s not all.

As workplace priorities evolve and change organisations can respond to these needs at speed, thanks to scalable print management software that makes it possible to automatically route print jobs to the most suitable printers—based on availability, capacity or proximity—while enhancing security through user authentication and secured mobile printing.

Print managers also gain full visibility of who is printing what, where and why – something that’s vital for reducing unnecessary print costs and promoting more responsible and eco-aware user behaviours.

Remote monitoring and support: saving time, money and hassle for users

Streamlining and simplifying life for employees, so they can get—and stay—productive is just the start. With the right MPS solution, organisations can proactively monitor the status and performance of their print estate. So that any printer issues that could get in the way of people staying productive are addressed fast—or don’t arise in the first place.

For example, there’s nothing more frustrating for users than having to roam around a building to find a working printer when the device located closest to their desk develops an error or there’s no replacement toner to hand.

Incorporating multiple services, features and technologies, MPS solutions significantly reduce the time cost and administrative burdens associated with day-to-day print operations. Whether that’s remotely detecting and troubleshooting device issues before these escalate into a major problem. Or ensuring that consumables are automatically ordered and delivered the moment they are needed.

What’s more, today’s MPS solutions give organisations the ability to centrally manage their entire distributed print estate from a single console. While insightful reports allow them to optimise the delivery of print services to users—everything from identifying the best location for print devices through to rationalising how documents are printed, and by whom.

Transforming print for the modern workplace

As organisations and teams go digital, getting their print environments up to speed is critical. Today’s flexible MPS solutions make it easy—simplifying management, eliminating unnecessary print costs and waste, while delivering the kind of on-the-go access to support the demands of today’s hybrid users.