Trimmer IT budgets increase need for imaging solutions and services

The emphasis on solutions and services has increased sharply as customers are now seeking greater value from their printer purchases as IT budgets are trimmed, says an industry expert.

"Printing alone does not bring competitive advantage for a company, but the value content of the pages produced does. So customers are looking for ways to integrate imaging and printing products in their business workflows through solutions," Bruce W. Dahlgren, Senior Vice-President, Worldwide Enterprise Sales, Hewlett Packard, said.

He added there is a growing awareness for management costs associated with a document's lifecycle.

"From a research conducted, we found that for every $1 spent on printing [printer, supplies and service] another $9 is spent in managing and maintaining the document throughout its lifetime. This is the major factor driving consolidation projects and the shift to multifunction printers (MFPs), Dahlgren said.

"With the need for greater compliance and transparency, customers are looking for ways to control and audit document use and distribution," he added.

With the introduction of green building policies within the UAE, office equipment such as printers, faxes and MFPs have an operational impact on the power consumption, office environment and recycling within an organisation.

"We can assist customers through our products and services, such as the HP Carbon Footprint Calculator, to understand and minimise their environmental impact while maintaining business productivity and goals," Dahlgren said.

"MFPs allow customers to consolidate multiple single-function devices [printers, copiers, faxes, scanners] into one single device. Functions such as a copying or faxing previously lived outside of the network, resulting in difficulty to proactively manage these devices and track or control usage."

By moving these functions to a network-based MFP "we can now use management tools and cost control solutions", he added.

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