Total cost of ownership (TCO) for a document management system includes the purchase cost, operational costs and hidden costs. It's that third factor that's hardest to calculate, yet most expensive - accounting for fully 50 percent of TCO.
Hidden costs include miscellaneous inefficiencies like misallocated resources, unnecessary or duplicated tasks, and bill-back opportunities lost through inaccurate accounting. Individually, each one seems like a minor expense. But added together, they can be a budget breaker.
Our client, a leading chemical company, wanted to strip all these inefficiencies out of the document processes at their North American headquarters.
Ricoh's high-quality digital document systems certainly factored in the choice. But even more important, Ricoh was the only provider capable of targeting our client's document inefficiencies. Of the thousands of documents our client produces and shares every day, Ricoh saw thousands of opportunities to identify and reduce hidden costs-and did so by implementing a transparent, accountable document management solution.
For maximum productivity and cost effectiveness, Ricoh installed a new fleet of high-volume and low-volume digital MFPs that copy, print, scan and fax-giving our client one simple and fast system for their entire document needs.
Even with the new fleet, though, hidden costs could still slip through if they weren't tracked. So, Ricoh installed its innovative Printer Cost & Security Manager (PCSM) package, a unique print management tool that allows our client to itemize production costs down to the penny.
A Page Control Station at each MFP requires users to swipe their building security card before they print or copy. From there, PCSM tracks each document they produce and compiles usage data in a comprehensive report for administrative and IT managers. As a result, our client can see who prints which documents, from what application, and on which system. They can identify documents being produced via third-party applications that are not supported by the our client network, which could lead to network crashes. The reports even make recommendations on how our client can spend its document dollars more wisely in the future.
PCSM also makes it easy for administrators to monitor document production by accessing usage data from their desktop. Meter reading is simplified by an Automated Count Manager, which communicates directly with Ricoh and eliminates inconveniences from manual meter reporting. Our client's Ricoh Direct account further simplifies the process by providing a quick and easy e-commerce site for ordering supplies and service online.
PCSM paid immediate dividends in terms of total cost of ownership. By analyzing document production patterns, Our client was able to identify under utilized systems and reconfigure its document management network with 16 fewer devices. Our client also increased cost efficiency. With accurate print and copy costs-per-person billed back to internal clients, employees became more cost-conscious and less wasteful in using the systems.
"PCSM increased our accountability to other cost centers in our company, which helped us improve document cost recovery," says our client's facility services technical administrator. "It also increased our accountability to upper management, which is very important at a time when our corporation is focused on controlling costs."
Another PCSM benefit was increased efficiency through the ability to redirect high volume print jobs. For example, when a our client's employee attempts to run a print job of thousands of pages, PCSM alerts the print network administrator so the job is routed to the corporate copy center instead. In this age of heightened security risks, PCSM gives our client another line of defense from information breaches as well.
"We're a corporate headquarters, so we have a lot of proprietary information in our network," says our client. "With PCSM, we know somebody can't walk in off the street and print documents. And, we don't have sensitive documents lying unattended at printers, because our employees have to swipe their card at the printer to receive their documents. It gives us a tremendous amount of document security. " |
