A guide to managed print services: The what, why, who and how.

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Beyond

expectation.

A guide to

managed print services:

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Today, every IT leader is being asked to deliver more for less, removing costs without aff ecting performance.

However, print estates are often one of the last areas of unsecured spending, overlooked due to a limited awareness of the true cost and a lack of clear ownership. You may not be familiar with the term, but Managed Print Services (MPS) are increasingly gaining momentum, as organisations look to take control of their printing and imaging environments, drive down costs, increase productivity and make a positive environmental impact.

This high-level guide will help boost your understanding of MPS. It will explain what it is, illustrate why you should consider it, give examples of who has been using it and advise on how you can go about implementing the right solution for your organisation.

Read on to ﬁ nd out about the basic components that make up MPS, the beneﬁ ts that they can deliver, examples of how and why businesses are using MPS and the best practice framework for deploying them in your organisation.

What exactly are Managed Print Services and what factors are driving their increasing adoption?

Printing, scanning, faxing and storage of documents are fundamental work requirements. Despite the constant evolution of technology, we are no closer to the paperless offi ce becoming a reality. There will always be a requirement for certain hardcopy documents such as contracts, legal documentation, presentations or receipts. Additionally, many people simply prefer to print and read tangible documents, rather than stare at a computer screen all of the time.

Because of this, printing and imaging estates are considered by many to be the cost of doing business, with little executive supervision. However, according to analysts printing costs can actually account for up to 3%1_{of an organisation’s total annual revenue! In this challenging}

economic climate the increased focus on analysing and reducing cost throughout the business has brought previously disregarded areas, such as printing, under increased scrutiny.

This is where MPS comes in, enabling organisations to expose the hidden costs of printing and unlock a range of other benefi ts. While there is no universally agreed upon defi nition of MPS, analysts and MPS providers agree on the key elements it involves. Technology analysts Gartner defi ne MPS as: “A service off ered by an external provider to optimise or manage a company’s document output to certain objectives, such as driving down costs, improving effi ciency and productivity, and keeping information secure.”

What’s driving the increased interest in MPS?

So why haven’t companies addressed this issue previously and why are they now turning to MPS? Well for one thing, IT may support your printers but there is rarely a single individual responsible

Introduction.

What is a Managed Print Service?

(www.gartner.com/technology/ research/it-glossary/index.jsp) 1_{Gartner, “Rightsizing Output} Fleets: The Hidden Goldmine,” J. Lundy, March 2001.

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for owning the entire print estate or for deﬁ ning an overall print strategy.

This can create a lack of visibility and understanding over the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of printing. MPS providers have the expertise to delve into your print estate and help you achieve a clear understanding of the exact cost. This total cost of printing is more than just hardware and paper, it includes a number of elements which make up the true cost:

 Device utilisation and environmental impacts

 IT overhead i.e. set-up, support and integration

 Cost of consumables (paper, ink, power etc) and equipment

 Print activities and lost user productivity

 Outsourced or variable data printing from back offi ce systems (invoices, statements, delivery notes etc)

 Paper based business processes and workﬂ ows

The time and expense of managing large and unwieldy legacy print estates is another factor driving interest in MPS. Many organisations have a print estate that has been acquired and added to over time, with printers attached either on or off the network across many locations.

Due to the low unit cost for lower end devices, many purchasing decisions are made at departmental or individual rather than enterprise level. This can lead to a surplus of personal light weight or desktop printers, while higher performance, lower cost communal printers are underutilised. This is not only an ineffi cient and costly manner to deploy a printing ﬂ eet, it’s a heavy support burden for IT, as well as making a signiﬁ cant environmental impact due to the waste (paper and defunct equipment), power consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

What does a Managed Print Service consist of?

Delivered by print specialists, MPS are tailored to suit an organisation and can incorporate the management and support of your print hardware environment, print software and applications including electronic document management and workﬂ ow solutions.

The key components of MPS include:

Hardware.

This can include printers, faxes, copiers, scanners or multifunctional devices that incorporate some (or all) of those functions. MPS aim to consolidate existing sprawling print estates and refresh aging legacy technology with more effi cient, reliable, eco-friendly machines.

Software.

Vendors and manufacturers have developed a range of software to help companies manage their printing environments. This software provides the tools to uncover detailed information on print usage, such as how many pages are printed per device, per person, by application, colour or mono, what time of the day etc. This intelligence can help identify and resolve issues by helping organisations to better manage their resources.

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Why should you implement MPS?

By working with an MPS provider to implement a tailored print solution, you can provide beneﬁ ts for both your organisation and the people who work within it.

Signiﬁ cant cost savings.

The challenging economic conditions demand that every organisation understands and controls what they are spending on printing.

MPS can make a huge diff erence, no matter what the size of the organisation, by delivering savings of up to 40%2_{from the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of printing. To put that in perspective, it could}

potentially save you 1% of your annual revenue and have a huge impact on your bottom line. So how are these savings delivered? An MPS provider will work with an organisation to implement a strategy to contain and reduce spending, ultimately reducing the cost of each and every printed page. MPS look to tackle your TCO of printing, including hardware, software, consumables, network management, infrastructure, maintenance and support. An eff ective MPS will realise savings by:

 Right-sizing your print and imaging estate

 Reducing the employee/printer ratio

 Consolidating your estate by utilising more effi cient multifunctional devices

 Reducing waste and consumable consumption through detailed monitoring, intelligent output processes and automated consumable ordering

 Setting print rules to improve effi ciency including auto-duplexing or a driver switch to force monochrome printing where more expensive colour toner is not required

Support Services.

This can include the day-to-day technical or administrative support of end-users, service and maintenance both remote and on-site, supply of devices and consumables as well as billing and reporting.

Applications.

A range of applications that integrate with your print and imaging estate to enhance eff ectiveness or add additional functionality and services. These can include:

Output Management Software.

 E-copy connectors to existing business applications

 E- maintenance

 Variable data printing software (invoices, statements, despatch notes etc.)

 Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – Document recognition and automated content to automate input and workﬂ ows

Why consider MPS? The beneﬁ ts...

2_{IDC, ROI Focus Shifts to Imaging}

and Output Infrastructure in the European Market, Matt Marshall and Phil Sargeant, 2005

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 Reducing IT and maintenance costs through upgraded technology and proactive ﬂ eet management.

Optimise your printer ﬂ eet technology.

Print technology is often purchased in an ad hoc manner, by diff erent individuals and departments throughout your organisation. This results in a combination of ageing legacy printers, copiers, faxes and scanners scattered across offi ces, which are increasingly expensive to maintain and support. They are slower to use, more prone to malfunctioning and use more supplies.

Optimise your print ﬂ eet to:

 Replace aging devices with more effi cient models

 Reduce the IT support burden

 Enable users to print more quickly with less errors

 Consolidate multiple devices into a single MFD (multifunctional device)

 Standardise technology to simplify support and consumable ordering

An MPS provider will assess your output levels and provide the appropriate devices to match your requirements. By upgrading to more effi cient, reliable technology you will reduce the overall printing costs, ease the support burden on IT and enable users to print more quickly with fewer errors. One of the keys to successful MPS is consolidation, replacing multiple single function devices such as scanners, printers, faxes and copiers with a single multifunctional device (MFD) which can perform all of those tasks. By consolidating a large number of devices into a smaller number of MFDs, you can reduce costs, save offi ce space and increase the effi ciency of your printing and imaging estate.

Additionally, by working with an MPS provider, you can look to standardise your printer technology. By standardising the devices it eliminates the problems of needing to order multiple types or brands of ink cartridges and supplies, making it easier to support and maintain your print estate day to day.

Usage optimisation.

This is another area where businesses often get it wrong and negatively impact the productivity of their business (and thus bottom line) without even realising it.

It could be an HR user frequently printing conﬁ dential documents who has to walk 5 minutes to reach the nearest printer. Or it could be the accounts team suff ering constant queues when using their nearest printer due to heavy usage, while a printer round the corner gathers dust. Deploying an MPS strategy will provide the right device, in the right place to match the output requirements of the organisation, department or individual.

An MPS provider will examine the output requirements of the range of users throughout an organisation based on criteria such as:

 Distance to printer

 Size and frequency of jobs

 Speed of output

 Job functions

 Anticipated number of print outputs

Few companies know

what it really costs to print,

fax and copy documents each

year, and fewer still are actively

managing those costs.

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Print specialists will then conduct usage analysis to help with strategic planning and placing devices in areas where they are most needed, delivering the factual management information to put you in control. This could be by adding additional printers to areas of high usage, relocating devices closer to frequent users so they don’t have to walk back and forth all day, restricting use of expensive colour printing for users who don’t require it or placing the appropriate devices (and thus functionality) where it is in most demand. MPS can help maximise productivity and effi ciency.

Improved device management and reduced IT administration overhead.

IT departments typically spend up to 10% of their time supporting their organisation’s print estate.

This can include fi xing printing problems (dealing with paper jams, replacing consumables or other parts), setting up devices and integrating them with the network or applications, installing specifi c print drivers – it all adds up to a signifi cant amount of lost time and money. In fact analysts Quocirca estimate that the hardware price of a printer makes up just 5% of the TCO3, with operating costs accounting for 45% and support the remaining 50%.

An MPS provider will provide on-site or remote support for an organisation’s ongoing printing needs, to maximise the uptime and remove the support burden from IT. Applications such as automated consumable ordering can keep an eye on stocks and automatically prompts your provider to ensure timely ordering, delivery and replenishment, so your people never have that empty feeling when they reach for replacement toner. This can release IT from the mundane and allow them to focus on more strategic initiatives where they can add real value.

Intelligent network-based support.

By off ering a ﬁ xed cost, SLA driven maintenance contract, companies know exactly what they are getting and have a single point of contact responsible for any issues with the document output environment.

Some MPS providers can off er an intelligent network-based support solution, monitoring print resources securely in real time, 24/7. If there’s a problem the MPS provider is notiﬁ ed automatically, and takes steps to resolve it. Many issues can be identiﬁ ed and resolved remotely without the need

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Curb wasteful desktop printing.

One of the most common examples of inappropriate device usage is the proliferation of light weight desktop printers throughout businesses.

People often prefer the convenience of having a personal printer on their desk or in their offi ce. It avoids the security issues of sending conﬁ dential ﬁ les to a communal printer, saves time from walking to the printer and perhaps avoids having to wait in a queue.

However, these perceived beneﬁ ts are actually misleading as light weight printers are often slow, very expensive on consumable usage and will frequently jam or breakdown when expected to regularly cope with high volumes or large documents – wasting time and eff ort.

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for engineer visits. If human attention is required, an engineer will be on site within the terms of an SLA built around business critical requirements and budget.

Your MPS provider can also monitor the status, workload and usage pattern for every device in your print estate, allowing for the measurement of stated objectives, SLA compliance and refi nement of your services going forwards. Proactive monitoring means it’s more than just a break/fi x service. For example, paper jam and error statistics can be analysed against benchmarks, and if there are anomalies, action can be taken to avoid potential problems and workfl ow interruptions.

Enhance productivity and security for your people.

In addition to measurable cost savings and enhanced support, MPS can also deliver intangible beneﬁ ts by helping to increase effi ciency and productivity of your people.

This can come in the form of time saved by using more appropriate devices that print faster and break down less. Or through the strategic placement of devices eliminating print queues or the need to walk from one side of the offi ce to the other to collect print jobs. Or it can be the result of increased functionality from advanced print applications, such as the ability to send scanned documents straight to a recipients email from the MFD or into an existing business application using one of the hundreds of connectors e.g. into an EDM system or accounts package etc. By using standardised devices and software, an employee can go to any printer in the offi ce, or in any offi ce in a multi-site organisation, call up their personal print queue and print any job. This system also helps to facilitate secure printing methods. Through secure ID systems, people can retrieve sensitive documents – such as payslips or conﬁ dential HR documents - at a printer and at a time suitable for them, without the risk of interception by others. This system also eliminates wastage due to documents being printed and abandoned. The range of ID methods available include ﬁ ngerprint readers, chip or magnetic cards, contactless cards and keyboard entry systems. It is also possible to block certain employees or job roles from printing off certain enterprise data, ensuring the security of your proprietary information.

Eco-printing - make a positive environmental impact.

Most IT decision makers would agree that they are now expected to help improve their company’s sustainability eff orts. MPS help organisations develop eco-friendly strategies that reduce the environmental impact of offi ce printing and imaging.

An eco-friendly printing solution can have a dual impact by optimising your printing infrastructure and also by reshaping user behaviour to have less impact on the environment. By understanding where and what people print, scan, copy and fax across your offi ce you can then implement a solution to beneﬁ t both your business and the environment. Whether it’s removing expensive and wasteful personal desktop printers, setting automatic duplexing to reduce total paper use or implementing an Electronic Document Management (EDM) solution, MPS helps decrease your environmental impact.

An eco-friendly MPS can also help cut printing costs, by reducing energy use and waste. For example, by making users use a pin code or a key card to print a document from a central print queue at any device, rather than just pressing print on their PC, you can eliminate costly and wasteful reprints. You can also reduce your device count through multifunctional devices which use less energy and materials compared with similar print, fax and copy standalone products. The latest print technology is also designed to reduce power requirements and their organisation’s

It is not uncommon

for each employee in a large

corporation to average 1,200

printed pages monthly, at a

cost of £400 per employee

each year.

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carbon footprint. For example, some manufacturers’ models in addition to standby modes have rapid fusing technology which runs on signiﬁ cantly less power than a non-eco-friendly printer and several models contain bio plastics.

Many organisations are moving towards, if not paperless, then at least ‘less paper’ offi ces. EDM software is another way to dramatically reduce the need for paper transactions and will be a key factor in any organisation’s green policy. By converting paper-based processes into digital formats, organisations are reducing waste, eliminating transport and storage costs and decreasing their environmental impact.

MPS is suitable for organisations of all sizes and can meet a variety of business challenges.

Read the examples below to see how diff erent organisations are using MPS to achieve their speciﬁ c goals whether cost saving, operational or environmental targets.

Who is using MPS?

Examples of MPS at work.

An organisation

looking to reduce

operational costs

and rationalise its

print estate

An organisation

looking to reduce

operational costs

and rationalise its

print estate.

Following the reorganisation of its head offi ce into an open plan environment and the introduction of a new electronic HR system, a pharmaceutical company with 650 staff needed to ensure the conﬁ dentiality and security of their printing, particularly for the HR and ﬁ nance departments.

The new HR system, while faster and more effi cient, still required the printing of sensitive documents such as appraisals, salary reviews or sickness reports. With the move to an open

An organisation

looking to facilitate

secure printing.

A large UK building society were looking to gain better visibility of their print expenditure and to implement a strategy to reduce costs. Working in the ﬁ nancial services market printing, photocopying and scanning legal documents, such as mortgage off ers and KPIs, is an essential function for their 1500 strong workforce.

Producing almost 600,000 pages per month, the sheer volume was driving up operational costs. They approached an MPS provider to help reduce the management and cost overheads. After conducting a full audit and analysis into print volume, frequency and employee print habits, the MPS provider proposed a solution designed to suit the building societies requirements.

This included using MFDs to replace individual print/scan/copy/fax devices and consolidating the ﬂ eet from 84 to 38 machines. This solution has provided net savings of around £60,000 p.a., not including the additional savings in productivity and paper costs.

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plan layout, printers were no longer tied to individuals, but situated in hubs. This meant that if a jam or a long print queue caused a delay, a sensitive document could appear a lot later than intended and be seen by anyone. They selected an MPS provider to deliver an upgraded print estate, including the solution to their secure printing quandary.

Security is accomplished by using intelligent print software, which only prints once the owner of a particular job logs onto a device and presses the button. This is accomplished by using RFID (Radio Frequency Identiﬁ cation) tags attached to employees building access cards, and RFID scanners attached to each device. Employees use RFID tags to draw down printing at the device, so only they see it. This ensures unwanted or ‘unthinking’ printing is avoided, as it only prints when the card is used at the device rather than when print is clicked on the computer.

An organisation

looking to reduce

operational costs

and rationalise its

print estate

An organisation

struggling to support

its high print

volumes and diverse

requirements.

A leading communications agency relied on their printing, scanning and photocopying facilities to deliver high quality collateral and client documentation for their large and demanding customer base.

From prooﬁ ng designs to reviewing colour schemes, the quality and volume of print outs – 420,000 per quarter - from over 200 creative and marketing specialists, each with diff ering print needs, required intensive IT support to sustain. The IT team needed to spend time conﬁ guring PCs and Macs, and maintaining each of the 12 printers – resolving paper jams and replacing toner cartridges – and in the interim the printer’s workload had to be temporarily diverted to other available machines.

In order to reduce the support overhead, as well as the operational cost of printing, they approached an MPS specialist to conduct a 30 day audit and analysis of their existing print arrangements and habits. Following the ﬁ ndings, they consolidated their number of devices from 12 to just 6 highly effi cient MFDs, with a mixture of black and white and colour to reduce the volume and cost of toner replacement.

These devices were taken on a 3 year lease contract from the MPS provider with support services bundled into the overall cost. This delivered savings of 25% on their annual costs and removed the burden of having to maintain and support their print estate.

An organisation

looking to reduce

operational costs

and rationalise its

print estate

An organisation

looking to make

a move to a less

paper ofﬁ ce.

One of the largest and most successful organisations in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry had outgrown their main offi ce building due to impressive business growth. In addition to moving for space reasons though, the FMCG company wanted to take the opportunity to innovate and move towards a less paper environment in their new offi ce. To achieve this they looked to roll out a complete MPS and document management solution.

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a number of security issues, as users could send documents to almost any of them. The MPS provider consolidated the ﬂ eet to 10 new secure and effi cient MFDs and created policies to help automate double side and black and white printing, and restrictions on the choice of printer. They also installed an Electronic Document Management system with 300 licenses to allow them to store, ﬁ le and retrieve information electronically across the business.

It has ensured their smart new HQ building is not littered with piles of paper for aesthetic, environmental and fi nancial reasons. They can now track usage and cost, and have seen signifi cant paper usage reductions, which fi ts into their CSR model. With the MPS they aimed for a 20% saving, but actually achieved nearer to 40%.

An organisation

looking to reduce

operational costs

and rationalise its

print estate

An organisation

looking to take

steps towards

achieving carbon

neutrality.

For a truck and trailer rental specialist ﬁ rm, reducing their carbon footprint and environmental impact was an important company objective.

One of the areas creating substantial waste was the constant printing and ﬁ ling of legal documents, necessary for proving hired vehicles are roadworthy. With a ﬂ eet of 20,000 vehicles being hired up to 6 times a week each and regular vehicle inspections, over 100,000 new documents were being processed and stored each year.

These documents not only had to be printed and stored, but also shared between the 20 depots around the country via post, fax or courier. They turned to an MPS provider to help them ﬁ nd an eco-friendly alternative. First they replaced the photocopiers with MFDs to scan, print and copy documents quickly and easily, and then implemented an intelligent document management system to ensure vehicle and customer documentation can be automatically uploaded to a central database, enabling information to be better shared, stored and managed.

Through automating their document management processes they signiﬁ cantly reduced their paper trail, and reduced courier miles in the process, which also led to considerable cost savings.

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The rationale behind every MPS deployment is diff erent.

But in all cases there are several basic steps you take to minimise the risk and ensure your organisation gets up and running eff ectively –simply put these are discover, design, deploy and develop.

Step 1. Discover – Print audit and analysis.

This stage puts you in the picture with analysis of your entire print estate - how it’s used, when and by whom.

By conducting a thorough review, analysis and audit, MPS providers can give you an accurate view of print volumes, print costs and usage details to help you manage your print estate better. By monitoring and tracking the performance of every device on your network and analysing print activity, this highlights printer problems and bottlenecks as well as misuse or unnecessary use. It can help answer the key questions such as:

 How much is being printed?

 How many devices are in the printer estate?

 What is the cost of printing?

 What is the power consumption?

 Which printers are used the most?

 What are the mono and colour volumes?

 How much does each page cost to produce?

 Which machines are the most and least expensive to print to?

 What is the user to device ratio?

Step 2. Design – Tailored solution design.

Designing a print strategy built around your organisation’s document output requirements gives you superior visibility of your spending and the ability to control your ﬂ eet, devices and user behaviour.

Tailored MPS helps you to achieve a more economical, effi cient and smarter printing and imaging solution.

Step 3. Deploy – Delivering the solution.

An MPS provider will project manage the whole process, procure, install, conﬁ gure or redeploy new and existing document and imaging devices as required.

This includes hardware, software, applications supplied and any integration with other corporate resources and user training.

How to go about

Implementing MPS.

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Step 4. Develop – Ongoing development and review.

Once the MPS is deployed the full value of the proposition becomes clear. An MPS provider will optimise, manage and support the day-to-day running of the printing estate, ensuring availability, tracking and ﬁ xing faults according to SLA and tracking tasks like helpdesk management and consumables usage and ordering.

They will also ensure that the service stays fi t for purpose through regular service reviews, tracking and refi ning the solution. By ensuring the latest technology and services are incorporated into a roadmap you can further enhance the ROI and business benefi ts going forwards.

Example of a typical MPS Framework

De

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D

ev

el

op

Dis

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Managed Print Service Framework Design solution Agree terms Project management plan Deliver & implement Train Support Report Review _Audit Scope Communicate analysis

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What to look for in a MPS provider.

Selecting the right partner is crucial to the success of any MPS project, but how should you evaluate the various MPS providers?

Key capabilities.

MPS covers a wide scope of services and expertise. Does the MPS provider off er the services you need? For example, they may excel at basic ﬂ eet management but be unable to incorporate advanced document workﬂ ow solutions.

Customer case studies.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Does the MPS provider have customer references that demonstrate their abilities and include evidence of meeting targets and building strong partnerships with customers?

Reporting.

How will the MPS provider monitor and report on the progress and results of the

engagement and demonstrate whether they have met the agreed targets? This could be in the form of a saving ﬁ gure, energy effi ciency goals or productivity gains.

Azzurri’s Document Solutions team are print specialists and we can apply our expert knowledge to your organisation’s bespoke printing needs.

We design, implement and manage customised print solutions which provide you with a rapid and intelligent print infrastructure built around your output requirements. Azzurri can help you select the appropriate devices and technology, printers, scanners or copiers, implement an Electronic Document Management system or even deliver a fully managed solution across your business.

What makes Azzurri different?

From conducting an initial audit of your current estate to automating your consumable ordering or refreshing your print devices, Azzurri deliver solutions that blend hardware, software and services to transform what has traditionally been a business expense, into a key supporting element of your strategy. So what makes Azzurri diff erent?

 A strategic partner - Managed Print Services deliver strategic business advantages revolving around agility, competitiveness, customer service, compliance, cost reduction, environmental awareness and information security. Wrapped in a managed service with usage analysis and business critical SLA maintenance; Azzurri solutions deliver superior visibility of your document output, signiﬁ cant savings and the ability to control your ﬂ eet, devices and user behaviour.

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 Highly accredited with leading print technology partners - We partner and are highly accredited with leading print technology vendors including Canon and INVU. Working closely with our partners not only enables us to ensure that we are the ﬁ rst with new technology, but also that we get the highest levels of technical and supply support.

 We are the UK’s leading independent managed services provider - We’re a leading managed services company delivering ﬂ exible voice, data and mobile communications, in addition to our specialist Document Solutions and Contact Centre divisions. This means we have years of experience in delivering managed services and our MPS are an extension of this expertise. This is reﬂ ected in our MPS engagement – whether it’s the smooth implementation, project management and delivery or conducting quarterly service meetings to communicate the latest print reports and ensure a continuous cycle of improvement.

 Our bespoke MPS framework - Whatever the size or distribution of your organisations, Azzurri’s MPS framework can be applied to deliver a tailored, bespoke solution that is built around your document output needs and speciﬁ c business goals and challenges.

 Ongoing management - Azzurri works in partnership with our customers to help them maintain control and deliver year on year cost savings and business process improvements through eff ective ongoing management. Part of this process involves constantly analysing the way our customers work and reﬂ ecting on the latest technologies available to deliver further business beneﬁ ts.

For more information on the issues raised here and how Azzurri can help, visit

www.azzurricommunications.co.uk/what-we-do/document-solutions/managed-print-services, call 0844 324 0000 or email ﬁ [email protected].