Firstly let’s address the title ‘Cheapest way to manage office photocopying and printing’. I don’t agree with the word cheap, in fact we at Panacea believe it should really mean the most expensive. The chances of you getting the cheapest deal for your office printer normally means you are cutting corners or compromising the package, so short term it appears cheap, but long term it’s really quite expensive. Some great examples are organisations buying cheap off-the-shelf print devices when really the money you will spend on running them makes them a far more expensive option long term; other great examples are companies buying cheap second hand photocopiers which will not last as long as a new print system and therefore are false economy, or finding the cheapest deal on the internet and then discovering you don’t have the package you thought you did and have to invest in pricey extras. Buy cheap, buy twice! A great saying but it really does have some truth!

Here at Panacea we much prefer the term: ‘good value’, and that’s what we want our customers to get. Here are a few examples of typical office printing situations and some very simple ways to save money, whilst maintaining a first class product and support package which will give you good value:

Printers for an Open Plan Office Environment

Invest in one or two (depending on the size of your workplace) multifunctional office printers with a cost per page service agreement. Most office photocopiers and printers come with secure print and ID codes or print job boxes so there really is no need to worry about jumping up and grabbing your work before prying eyes see it, or worse, it disappears. The operation is seamless but it does mean that staff will need to walk from their desk to the office printer when it is convenient for them, which for some may be an issue but the advantages are, not only will your prints be a fixed extremely competitive price, but you can see what’s being printed and by whom and that allows the money man to gain control of your print costs and give you vision.

Shared Photocopier for a Traditional Office with Different Rooms and Areas

It is still well worth investing in a main photocopier or printer similar to the first scenario, however, walking to the printer, if it is now on a different floor, is a bit more time consuming and time is money. To fix this we would recommend smaller desktop printers which are still on a service agreement (cost per page) and therefore whilst the main work load goes through the bigger main copier these convenience printers are still great value and again we can monitor exactly who is doing what and how much it is costing, allowing us once again to control print.

The scenarios are endless but our question to you is: do you know how much money your organisation spends on print, or even if you do, can you tell us your cost per print and is it good value?

If you don’t know the answer to this then maybe your setup is not as cheap as you thought. Why not start a conversation with us to get the best value from your office photocopying.