Printing has become seemingly less important as businesses move towards a paperless existence. Still, printing is an integral part of operating an enterprise. Cloud computing and storage have innovated almost every other aspect of business, and printing is the next frontier.
Gartner estimates that 90% of companies don’t know how many printers they have or how much they spend on print. How can printing become more transparent and efficient?
This is where cloud printing comes in.
With web-to-print technology, employees are able to upload their content to cloud services and order those materials to be printed and shipped anywhere around the world.
While out of town on a conference, you find a valuable document for your team presented by the keynote speaker. Instead of emailing the link to yourself and hoping to remember it later, with cloud printing services you can select the document, print it, and it will be available for your team at all satellite offices.
What is Cloud printing services?
Cloud printing services (CPS) are hosted cloud computing offerings that enable users to print documents on any printing device associated with the cloud. Cloud Print frameworks routes print jobs between your computer, smartphone, or tablet and sends it to an Internet-connected printer. The service also allows users to easily discover printers and print from their own device without the need for complex setup and driver installation.
What can cloud printing do for your IT operations management?
“Businesses save 30% of their annual printing costs with managed print services.” - BizTech Magazine
Each operating business site needs at least one print server for every 100 print devices. By virtualizing the print infrastructure Cloud Print replaces the on-site print server with a private print network that uses virtual print servers hosted in the cloud. Hosting your print servers in the cloud brings higher security, control, agility, and productivity.
Cloud print services eliminate the need for on premise servers, which means no quarterly maintenance, no hardware failures, and reduce downtime. Reduction in hours spent maintaining and configuring network solutions will lower your enterprises’ IT costs, and enable you to invest more time and resources into tackling more important projects.
With managed print services (MPS) businesses can simply outsource the entire process of office printing to a third-party service provider. This movement to the cloud would also kill monthly document quotas required by printer lease contracts, lower ink jet purchasing costs, and provide a clear overview of enterprise-wide printing trends. This cloud solution also allows top management to track and identify who is printing what and in what quantities.
Gaining a firm oversight of your IT spend and optimizing the entire print environment is an integral part of your enterprise architecture.
