There are several key benefits for organizations that are considering moving their print infrastructure to the cloud. Jim Wieser, Product Marketing Director at Y Soft, outlines business benefits and key factors to consider before spending money on a cloud-based print management solution.
Moving your print infrastructure to the cloud is a great idea, as cloud-based print management promises to eliminate the fussy, boring business of constantly installing and updating print drivers on local machines. It lets you say goodbye to print servers and provides a way to move print services from a capital to an operational expense—an innovation your accountants will most likely applaud.
Ideally, cloud-based print management enables businesses to ensure highly available print services without spending too much on hardware redundancy. For this reason, some of the world’s foremost cloud service providers are turning their attention to print management innovation. If these arguments entice you, here are three crucial things to consider before you take the plunge: Cost, availability, and scale.
As you approach potential vendors, these are some questions that you should ask:
Question # 1:Â What will a cloud-based print management system cost, and how is cost measured?
Question # 2:Â Can you assure that services will always be available? How?
Question # 3: Will services scale as my business grows, or my business needs change?
Here’s why these questions matter and what to look for as vendors answer them.
Cost
What will the cost of cloud-based print management be? Finding the right answer to this question is based on understanding of how costs are calculated. Expect a subscription model – that’s what Software as a Service (SaaS) is all about, and dig deeper to learn what metrics are used to quantify “services†and calculate their costs. Different vendors offer different options, including:
- Number of Users
- Number of Print Jobs
- Up-time Performance
- Per Print Device
- Per Print Server
Among these, the most business-friendly is the Per Print Device model. It imposes no usage restrictions on business units, departments, or individual users, and is predictable. Be wary of any model that requires you to pay for use, especially if this sits on top of what you’re already spending to subscribe. In all our years as a print management company, serving 42% of Fortune 500 companies, Per Print Device has proved to be an equitable solution for vendors and clients alike. And we’ve found it drives innovation on our part. Innovation and excellent maintenance not only keep our customers satisfied, but they also sustain and increase the value of our products as they evolve.
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Availability
Especially for companies new to multi-tenant cloud-based services, availability can be a major concern. Surrendering control of an essential business service to a third-party vendor can feel dicey, which is why it’s important to double down on this question: Show me your statistics, please. Statistics establishing availability are based on a combination of reliability, maintainability, and redundancy—and what you want to see from a cloud vendor are in the 99.9+% range. Simply put, downtime eats into profits.
As you do a deep dive into the availability issue, make sure to ask about resiliency, too. This is a measure of how quickly services can be recovered after interruption. Highly resilient services are quickly restored. Cloud vendorsOpens a new window may offer different guarantees of availability at different price points. This allows customers to determine what guarantees of service are important where—does a branch office have the same requirement for always-available print services as the flagship office does?
A good way to double-check your availability requirements is to estimate what print services downtime will cost your company. And remember to ask about a vendor’s track record over time. The right vendor combines experience in print management and experience in cloud services. Your company deserves both.
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Scalability
Scalability is a measure of business agility. Knowing that your cloud print management solution has the potential to expand, adapt to changing business realities, and still deliver market-leading print management services to all your employees and at all your business locations is essential.
Ideally, the solutions we adopt today have flexibility built-in. Moving to cloud-based print management promises the combination of lower infrastructure costs and the ability to adapt quickly if and when print management needs change, or business-friendly new features become available. It can make the difference between evolution and obsolescence, a smart way to avoid being stuck with a fleet of dinosaurs as technology moves on—which it inevitably will.
Asking these questions about scalability will help you choose a solution that will always be just right.
- Does the vendor offer solutions tailored to the needs of the enterprise? Of SMB?
- Will the print management architecture scale quickly to accommodate sudden growth scenarios—like mergers or acquisitions?
- How easily can my company add or eliminate tiers or services as business needs change?
- Can my cloud print management solution easily move from a multi-tenant infrastructure to a single-tenant infrastructure if I need it in the future?
- Can the vendor help protect my existing investment in the printers I have today?
While this is not an exhaustive list of questions you’ll need answers to, they can help you decide which cloud-based print management solution vendor takes these factors seriously with your best interests in mind.
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