OKI Europe Ltd has launched Smart Managed Document Solutions at GITEX 2013 
creating a major new opportunity for SMBs to cut costs through enhanced print and document management.
“OKI can help today’s SMBs meet the tough challenge of exploding information growth,” believes Javier Lopez, senior manager, services and solutions, OKI Europe. “Until now, the Managed Print Services (MPS) concept has been mainly targeted to larger organisations and narrowly defined to include only IT infrastructure and management, which typically accounts for only one quarter of the savings which could be made.”
However, this has now changed with the introduction of OKI’s broader Smart Managed Document Solutions strategy, designed to meet the unique needs of small to medium businesses and workgroups. “The new services and solutions portfolio are specifically aimed at SMBs to help cut wasted end-user time whilst dramatically improving document management processes – which together account for the other 75 per cent of potential savings,” he says. “As a result, smaller businesses can reduce their hidden print costs by as much as 30 per cent.”
In its Managed Print Services Landscape 2013 report, analyst Quocirca finds that, “despite the age of digital communications… few organisations actually operate a paperless work environment, with many continuing to rely on printing to support business activities.” OKI Europe’s Lopez adds: “We are responding to this by working with our channel partners to help SMBs make the most of their print capability, by ensuring they have the right products in the right place. At the same time, our print and document management solutions help SMBs to reduce and take control of their document-related costs”
OKI’s Smart Managed Document Solutions adopts a consultative approach with customers, which ensures that print and document management play a fully-integrated role in the broader workflow of the business and at the lowest cost. The Smart Managed Document Solutions portfolio includes:
Smart Managed Page Services – OKI will identify the print requirements of a business and recommend the right printing device and a tailored all-inclusive printing plan that enables SMBs to reduce the total cost of their business printing including consumables and servicing, driving improved productivity and workplace efficiencies
Smart Managed Print Services –a print optimisation and management service installing the right device in the right place improving productivity and cost efficiency in the workplace, whilst significantly reducing costs
Smart Managed Document Services – a bespoke service to streamline the document workflow of a business by removing labour intensive manual paper handling through the digitisation of documents for quicker and easier archiving, retrieval and sharing across the organisation within a highly secure infrastructure.
OKI has long been recognised as a leading provider of robust, high-quality and affordable in-house print solutions and unrivalled service support designed to meet the identified needs of its core SMB customer base. With its integrated Smart Managed Document Solutions strategy, this is now matched by a comprehensive portfolio of secure document workflow solutions which enable SMBs to optimise their printer fleet by ensuring the right products in the right place and at lowest cost.
Key benefits include:
- Cost reduction – ‘Pay as you go’ or ‘per-page’ pricing gives total visibility of document production costs. Leasing provides access to latest print technology without tying up budget. Also helps reduce the corporate carbon footprint, by employing energy-efficient devices and implementing responsible and secure printing practices such as reducing waste and reducing consumables
- Cost reduction – Smart Managed Document Solutions from OKI looks at those complex or high quality print tasks usually sent to external print houses or copy centres – such as banners, signage, pre-printed forms – in order to see how these might be undertaken more cost-efficiently using OKI’s unique hardware proposition
- Hassle-free management – As an externally-managed print service offering, this ensures a single point of contact for all device and document management services and supplies. Consolidated billing also simplifies accounting and provides insights into actual printing costs
- Productivity and workflow – OKI’s unique distributed managed print services proposition improves user productivity and satisfaction, through increased uptime and automatic restocking of consumables, leaving staff to focus on business priorities
- Efficiency, workflow and compliance – With document workflow as part of a managed print service offering, both paper and electronic documents can be more tightly integrated into business processes, enabling MFPs that have an embedded open platform to become document processing hubs. Rationalising the print environment will offer greater potential to reduce costs and a security risk assessment will ensure that networked MFPs and printers are protected against the same vulnerabilities as any other part of the organisation’s network infrastructure.
At a time when pressures on managing the flow of information are greater than ever, OKI’s Smart Managed Document Solutions offers the ideal response in helping SMBs capture, route and manage documents efficiently and cost-effectively.
“At OKI, our goal is to help develop strategies to bring under control the last hidden cost in many SMBs – that of document output and management – without compromising print quality or performance,” confirms Lopez.
