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Managed Print Service: Definition, Examples

Definition

Managed Print Service (MPS) is a program offered by print providers that manages all aspects of a business’s printing devices. This includes devices like printers, scanners, faxes and copiers. The service aids in maintaining, supplying, and optimizing the print environment while reducing costs and improving productivity.

Phonetic

The phonetics of “Managed Print Service” are: Mænɪʤd prɪnt ˈsɝːvɪs

Key Takeaways

  1. Improved Efficiency: Managed Print Service (MPS) optimizes your print environment by regularly maintaining and updating your equipment, managing your print jobs, and keeping your print software updated. This leads to improved efficiency and productivity by minimizing downtime and ensuring optimal print quality and speed.
  2. Cost Savings: MPS helps control and reduce printing costs by consolidating your print fleet and implementing print policies. It helps in areas such as reducing ink and paper usage, eliminating unnecessary prints, and reducing energy costs, leading to significant cost savings.
  3. Enhanced Security: MPS provides improved data security by implementing secure printing practices and controls to prevent unauthorized access or loss of data. This includes features like secure print release, user authentication, and data encryption, enhancing your organization’s data security posture.

Importance

Managed Print Services (MPS) is crucial in the technology field as it allows businesses to optimize or manage their document output devices including printers, scanners, faxes, and copiers. MPS offers a centralized approach that enhances efficiency, reduces costs, provides scalability, and ensures security. By monitoring print behaviors, it helps companies identify wasteful printing habits and implement better strategies. It also reduces the time and resources spent on printer-related issues, freeing up the IT department to focus on more strategic tasks. The increased security MPS provides is particularly vital because it protects sensitive data against unauthorized access, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations. Thus, MPS is significant in improving operational efficiency, cost-effectiveness, security, and contributing to sustainable practices in businesses.

Explanation

Managed Print Services (MPS) is a program provided by print suppliers to manage all aspects of your business printing devices, such as scanners, faxes and copiers, under one contract. The purpose of introducing MPS in an organization is to improve efficiency, productivity, information security, and reduce costs, waste, and downtime. Basically, it’s an end-to-end solution for all the printing requirements of a business, managed by a single provider. The provider is responsible for the maintenance, repair, and monitoring of the printing equipment, including the delivery of ink and toner.Moreover, MPS is widely used for tracking print volumes and behavior to capture valuable data. This helps to identify inefficiencies and restructure the print environment for better performance. In fields like healthcare, education, finance, and law, MPS plays a vital role by enabling easy and secure document flow. This service can save businesses a significant amount of money, plus free up IT departments to focus on more critical tasks. Thus, Managed Print Services offer more control, flexibility and convenience to businesses when dealing with printing demands.

Examples

1. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise’s Managed Print Services: HP offers a comprehensive MPS known as “HP Managed Print Services”. They help in managing printing devices such as scanners, fax machines, copiers, and multifunctional printers. They look after the entire printing environment for a company, freeing up valuable human resources, encouraging environment friendly practices and saving money on print-related costs. 2. Xerox’s Managed Print Services: Xerox offers their Managed Print Services to businesses undergoing digital transformation. These services include the management of print devices and supplies, development of printing policies, close tracking of print usage, advanced security and automated solutions for supply requirements.3. Ricoh’s Managed Print Services: Ricoh provides MPS solutions to organizations looking to integrate their print and digital workflows. Ricoh’s team helps in identifying areas where companies can improve print efficiency and productivity, providing devices and solutions that better fit their needs. The end result often includes cost savings, improved operational efficiency, better security and sustainability.

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)

**Q: What is Managed Print Service (MPS)?** A: Managed Print Service (MPS) is a program offered by print providers to manage all aspects of a business’s printing devices, including printers, scanners, faxes, and copiers, to help save time, increase efficiency and reduce costs.**Q: How does a Managed Print Service work?**A: MPS providers usually start with a comprehensive assessment of your current print environment, identify potential improvements and then develop an improvement plan. They will then monitor, manage, and optimize your total print output environment, irrespective of printer brand.**Q: What are the benefits of using MPS?**A: Benefits of MPS include cost reduction, control and optimization of printed document output, visibility on print activity, increased productivity, enhanced document security, and reduced waste and environmental impact.**Q: What types of businesses benefit the most from MPS?**A: Any business with dependency on a large volume of printing such as legal firms, educational institutions, government agencies, healthcare organizations benefit greatly from MPS. However, even small and medium businesses can reap benefits through the cost and time savings.**Q: How does MPS contribute to sustainability?**A: MPS can contribute to sustainability by reducing paper waste and energy consumption. This is achieved through print optimization strategies like duplex printing, print management software to reduce unnecessary printing, device consolidation, and recycling programs.**Q: Can MPS help increase my business’s security?**A: Yes, MPS can help to increase document security by requiring user authentication for device access, maintaining a record of all print activities, and ensuring that unclaimed print jobs are not left lying around on the printer.**Q: Does MPS work with different printer brands?**A: Yes. Good MPS providers can manage print fleets of any mix of make or model.**Q: Does MPS include repair and maintenance of printers?**A: Yes. Typically, an MPS program covers all services, repairs and maintenance for your print devices.**Q: How can MPS help me predict printing costs?**A: A good MPS will provide full visibility of your print consumption, enabling accurate budgeting and cost control. Charges are often combined into a single, per-page rate for simplicity.

Related Tech Terms

  • Print Fleet Management
  • Document Security
  • Remote Print Monitoring
  • Print Supply Management
  • Environmentally Friendly Printing

Sources for More Information

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