Are You Throwing Good Money After Bad on Printing? Orange Isn't.

Orange, the mobile and cellular communications giant owned by France Telecom, is well known to UK consumers. This is not least because of the large scale advertising and marketing campaigns it runs, just like any major brand. A large proportion of this advertising involves a huge proportion of physical printing of some kind. Included in this are leaflet printing, booklets and pamphlets, consumer magazines, billboard posters and direct mail materials. It's pretty understandable that the likes of Orange would spend hundreds of millions on printing costs.

However according to print industry journal PrintWeek, Orange spends approximately £7m per year on what is known as 'print management'. Not on the actual costs of printing; this is spent on a company to actually manage all their printing activities. It might seem a little OTT to spend this much on a third party service merely to oversee printing. Yet that thought wouldn't last long if you understood what print management is capable of. Ultimately this is what it comes down to. Businesses who invest in a robust print management solution actually make cost savings as opposed to trying to deal with all their printing inhouse.

A significant proportion of the savings come from the reduction in print waste. Millions of dollars are lost every year by mistakes such as incorrect color calibration, problems with paper stock and simple typos which were ignored before sending to print. When you're talking about large and complex print operations these are the kinds of things that frequently go wrong. Print management as a concept came about because businesses who relied on printed media needed to find a solution to these inefficiencies.

Aside from reducing waste, another thing print management is able to achieve is planning the logistics of all the varied print campaigns so that resources and time are used most efficiently. By scientifically planning and project managing print jobs versus resources and available printers, print management companies are able to maximise efficiency. A classic example is when poorly managed campaigns lead to a maxing out of printers and equimpent during busy periods - if you plan ahead and spread out the jobs you can reduce significant overheads. This in turn can dramatically bring down the costs of printing. So you can either achieve the same amount of output for less money, or reinvest the savings in more print marketing and ultimately more ROI.

I know what you're thinking - that's all very well for Orange, but what about our company?. In the past decade the gains in digital printing technology have meant smaller scale print management solutions are possible for small to medium enterprises, meaning that the rest of us can enjoy the same kinds of cost savings the 'big guys' have been enjoying for years. So are you making the most of this chance?