December 15, 2021. My article “How to Optimize the Fleet of Office Equipment, and Why Does Business Need It?” was published on IT Channel News.
Every modern company works with documents — accounting reports, invoices, contracts, warranty cards, internal memos. The larger the organization, the heavier the document flow, and the more time, effort, and money gets spent just keeping the printing process running. The problem isn’t printing itself. The problem is doing it without any visibility into where the costs are actually going.
That’s where a print audit comes in — and market analysts recommend conducting one at least once a year. It pulls together a complete picture of your printing expenses, both visible and hidden, and gives you a solid foundation for everything that comes next.
So what does print fleet optimization actually look like in practice? In the article I broke it down into four steps, each building on the last.
Step one: a full inventory of every device. How many printing devices does the company have? What condition are they in? How many pages does each one produce? This analysis surfaces underperforming equipment that’s draining electricity without contributing proportionally to output, and makes it possible to compare print volumes across periods and track exactly where resources are being consumed. In many cases, replacing several aging printers with a single modern, high-performance device turns out to be cheaper in the long run — new equipment comes with a manufacturer’s warranty, which eliminates at least twelve months of unplanned repair costs from the equation.
Step two: control who prints what. Once you know what you have, you can start managing access. Restricting which employees can use specific devices, and who has access to color printing, immediately reduces unnecessary consumption. Most people don’t think twice about printing personal documents on company equipment, or about the fact that even a black-and-white document can silently consume color toner. Introducing access controls addresses both issues without requiring any major infrastructure changes.
Step three: use monitoring data to forecast future costs. Optimization isn’t a one-time event — it’s an ongoing process. With the right monitoring tools in place, companies gain the ability to track spending over time, spot patterns, and make proactive decisions rather than reacting to problems after the fact. This turns printing from an uncontrolled expense into a predictable, manageable one.
Step four: outsource the fleet to a managed services provider. This is where data security enters the picture. Modern MFPs and printers can be accessed from any device — smartphone, tablet, laptop — from anywhere with an internet connection. That flexibility is valuable, but it also creates data transfer risks that most companies are not equipped to manage internally. Handing the fleet over to a qualified outsourcing partner, with security requirements clearly defined in the contract, closes that gap effectively.
The conclusion I drew then remains just as relevant today: print fleet optimization is not a peripheral concern. As MFPs and printers become a core element of corporate information infrastructure, they deserve the same strategic attention as any other business-critical system.