The Business Case for Managed Print Services and Variations Thereof: Solutions to the Corporate Junk Drawer

Over the past several years small organizations have compiled dozens, medium-sized organizations hundreds, and large organizations thousands of printers, copiers, multifunctional devices, faxes and scanners to produce documents. These same organizations have contracted with courier services to distribute documents and invested in software applications to help manage them. Many also outsource document production and even destruction. As of 2006, Hewlett Packard has placed over 100 million laser printers in North America. Copier manufactures have installed over eight million copiers and multifunctional devices. Even with the surge of attaching documents to e-mail for distribution, faxing documents is still very popular. Two years ago FedEx bought Kinko’s. What does this marriage tell us about the connection between document production and distribution? They are a perfect match. At the time of this writing FedEx® stock is $116 per share reflecting a bullish outlook on corporate America’s appetite for outsourcing document production and distribution.

Even with the massive investments and dependence on document technology and related services, the print space in most organizations can be likened to corporate America’s junk drawer. Just like the junk drawers in our homes, print spaces are rarely managed effectively and even less rarely cleaned out and reorganized.