Issue #0425/1 - Further evidence that IT, Facilities, Operations and Purchasing managers do not have an adequate grasp of hard copy costs and Total Cost of Printing is provided by another extract from the survey by IDC that provides an insight into the minds of managers in terms of how they view, purchase and use copiers, printers and multifunction peripherals in workgroup and departmental environments.
Following our recent analysis of data from a survey of European IT, Facilities, Operations and Purchasing managers by IDC (TCPglobal Issue #0420 - "‘Nobody knows?’ Monitoring Hard Copy Costs – survey from IDC"), this week we take a further look into the data with a focus on the types of costs tracked and managers’ perceptions of the relative scale of those costs.
In the last article we noted that managers, and IT managers in particular, are not paying adequate attention to tracking costs of hard copy provision or Total Cost of Printing within their organisations. It was noted that Facilities, Operations and Purchasing (FOP) managers are in possession of better information through closer monitoring.
Analysing these additional data reinforces the conviction that many managers do not recognise the scale of costs that can be associated with providing hard copy to their organisations. The fact that IT managers are consistently seen to be less in control of costs than FOP managers suggests that their focus is primarily on the supply of PC, server and network services and not on the supply of hard copy services. In the UK this suspicion is only consolidated by the continuing observation that corporate IT magazines (e.g. Computer Weekly) almost completely ignore printers, printing and their associated costs. Why is there this fixation with servers and networks in the IT world?
In this article we look at four questions from the survey, as follows:
Which of the following costs or benefits are tracked?
For which of the following devices are costs tracked?
In your opinion, please rank the following hardcopy devices in order of how much they cost to run, where the first is the most expensive.
In your opinion, please rank the following hardcopy devices in order of how much they cost to run, where the first is the least expensive.
Figure 1.
Which of the following costs or benefits are tracked?One of the arguments that has been repeated many times in TCPglobal is the fact that operating a comprehensive TCO or TCP model should be considered to be a priority to most organisations and to all large organisations and corporations.
Which of the following cost or benefits are tracked?
With only just over 40% of respondents indicating that they monitor IT department time and labour support costs, and only around one-in-four monitoring end user productivity, it is clear that there really is still very little understanding of the issues and components involved in the true cost of printing. If these two aspects are being largely ignored then what hope is there of some of the wider issues being considered?
For instance – what about the basic issues of reliability, usability and day-to-day maintenance? Paper jams and misfeeds tend to be fact of life from time to time in most machines; users may spend inordinate amounts of time attempting to change obscure driver or machine settings so that they achieve the required result; and it is much faster to replenish some machines with consumables or media than others.
Also, how many times have any of us had to reprint a page because the first attempt did not produce what we wanted, either through ignorance, error or fault? One of my favourite blunders is to accidentally send the print job to the default printer (mono laser) when I wanted a colour print. Without exception this error is associated with trying to move too fast (more haste less speed), resulting in the ‘Print’ button being clicked before properly assessing which printer that job is being routed to. Each time I make this mistake I have to resend the print job at the cost of time, paper, ink/toner, waste management, the environment, etc.
Most of the respondents to the survey ignore end user productivity as a factor to monitor despite productivity being a major benefit of MFPs and a major sales feature for many manufacturers (on average, only 28% of respondents do monitor end user productivity). As organisations increasingly adopt MFPs as a primary device in the office environment, often with high purchase costs, surely part of the motivation must be productivity rather than merely the ownership of one machine instead of three or four? Why then is productivity not monitored by more organisations?
This chart dramatically shows the yawning gap between the monitoring of the obvious hard costs (hardware, consumables and maintenance/repair) and the monitoring of other associated costs. Although there are no significant differences between these results for monitoring of hard costs, tracked by around three-quarters of respondents, the number of respondents monitoring support costs plunges to only just over 40% with monitoring of productivity even lower, as stated.
Noticeable again is the fact that IT departments are consistently less inclined to track costs and benefits in comparison to FOP departments, particularly in the non-hardware/supplies areas.
Figures 2 & 3.
For which of the following devices are costs tracked?Traditionally copiers are the most regulated machines, simply because of the nature of the copier sales model where click charges preside. This survey shows that tracking runs at an average of 79% of companies with, predictably, the FOP departments having the most interest (83% or respondents). It is actually surprising though that IT managers, whose interest has traditionally been in the capital sales model, are claiming such a high interest in monitoring copier costs (only 9% lower than FOP managers, at 74%).
At the other end of the scale, it is not entirely surprising that single user machines, printers and MFPs are the least tracked – tracked by less than 50% of companies. Again, IT managers are showing their lack of interest in cost tracking, undertaking 4% lower tracking of single user printers and 11% lower tracking of single user MFPs than the FOP departments. This may well be related to that apparent fixation on the server/networking aspects of IT and I would suggest that these devices probably constitute more of an irritation to IT managers than a part of their service provision, with a ‘let the departments handle them, I have bigger fish to fry’ mentality.
For which of the following devices are costs tracked?
For which of the following devices are costs tracked?
Fax machines have never been of any great interest to IT departments so, like the copier situation, it is surprising that as many as 46% of IT managers track fax costs when they are tracked by only 12% more of the FOP managers.
IT managers certainly demonstrate the narrowness of their interest in print costs by exceeding FOP management tracking only of ‘departmental’ level machines – both printers and MFPs. This is the ‘IT domain’. Even here though, the proportion of managers tracking costs does not exceed 80%. Only the tracking of copiers by FOP managers breaks that 80% mark (83%).
To emphasise this difference in interests and attitudes, we can reverse the chart (Figure 3) thus highlighting the primary interest of the FOP departments in Copiers while the primary interest of IT departments is workgroup printers.
Indeed, it is striking that IT managers pay relatively consistent attention to the large machines (between 63% and 79% for copiers and departmental machines) and that there is then a sharp fall to the 40% mark for the small and personal machines.
Figure 4.
In your opinion, please rank the following hardcopy devices in order of how much they cost to run, where the first is the most expensive.
Reiterating the results outlined in the first part of this analysis (TCPglobal Issue #0420 - "‘Nobody knows?’ Monitoring Hard Copy Costs – survey from IDC"), it is extraordinary that such a high proportion of companies have so little idea of what their hard copy activities are costing them. Overall, almost one-third of all respondents would not even offer an opinion as to which type of machine they think costs most to run, rising to 36% from the FOP managers.
Interestingly, IT departments uncharacteristically demonstrate a better knowledge of the situation with 10% fewer respondents declining an opinion than the FOP managers.
Other than this, it is no surprise that general opinion places laser printers as the most expensive type of hard copy device. Whether or not this is an accurate reflection of reality (and this needs to be the subject of a further investigation and article), there can be only one reason for the magnitude of this response – sales model! The fact that printer manufacturers, through their managed print programs and especially for high end MFP products, are increasingly moving towards the pay-per-click approach to sales traditional to copier manufacturers, would suggest that the copier sales model is perceived to be a real threat to them in this area.
The differences in opinion relating to the costs of laser copiers and both types of MFP are largely insignificant – where perceived expense level is relatively consistent at around the 10-12% mark. It is interesting to note, that the printer-based MFPs are perceived to be more expensive to run than copier-based MFPs (albeit by a small margin) in the same way as printers are perceived to be more expensive to run than copiers. Watch for the anomaly in the next chart, though!
At this point the strangest observation is that FOP managers appear to perceive that MFPs, whether printer or copier based, are less expensive to run than copiers while IT managers consider them to be more expensive to run. With their history of contract sales one would expect FOP managers to have such a good grasp of copier costs that MFPs would appear to be more expensive to run.
Figure 5.
In your opinion, please rank the following hardcopy devices in order of how much they cost to run, where the first is the least expensive.
One might expect answers to this question to be the almost total inverse to answers to the previous question. Not so!
Bizarrely, 4% fewer respondents are prepared to give an opinion on which type of machine is least expensive to run. Does this emphasise the enduring belief that laser printers are seen as the most expensive to run but from that point on there is confusion in the minds of users/administrators? It would certainly suggest that managers’ knowledge of low running costs is scant. Or perhaps they don’t care – as long as they have a handle on which machines are most expensive, the rest will look after themselves.
It seems most out of character for FOP departments to be so undecided on the least and most expensive machines in comparison to IT departments. There were 10% more FOP respondents who are undecided about the most expensive machines (Figure 4) and a huge 13% more who are undecided about the least expensive (Figure 5).
Certainly very few respondents consider laser printers to be the least expensive to run, which is quite understandable, but, again bizarrely, very few consider laser copiers to be least expensive despite their responses to the previous question.
Considering the primary response to this question though, why should printer-based MFPs be perceived to be the least expensive type of machine? Is it perhaps the result of confusion as to the origin of the device (printer-based or copier-based) as opposed to the primary usage of the device?
As copy pages migrate to print pages, and devices demonstrate higher and higher degrees of parallel robustness (each function is as robust and capable as each of the others), user perceptions are bound to be influenced by the primary usage function.
Also unusual here is that FOP departments are more likely than IT departments to consider printer-based MFPs to be least expensive to run. Considering their traditional interest in copiers rather than printers and their involvement with contract click-based buying one would expect them to vote copier-based MFPs or copiers themselves as least expensive.
To summarise:
- Managers of all four department types need to acquire a greater grasp on the sources, nature and scale of costs associated with offering print services to their organisations.
- Tracking of hard copy costs – hardware, supplies and associated factors – needs to be brought more into the mainstream of IT and services management.
- IT managers in particular need to bring their interest in hard copy costs into line with their fixation with server and network costs.
- Tracking of hard copy devices needs to be standardised so that even small, personal devices are tracked – not just the larger, departmental machines. Remember, there are huge numbers of personal level machines spread around corporations and large organisations.
~End~
