Small businesses can now save on printing costs too, according to the printer giant.
Managed document services (MDS) can reduce printing costs by up to 30 percent, according to research firm IDC. The figure was quoted by Canon when announcing the company was its extending its MDS to smaller businesses.
“Australia's large businesses have been saving time and money, while reducing their carbon emissions with managed services for years,” said Canon business services director Gavin Gomes.
“Canon is focused on how we can deliver big business solutions for smaller businesses, giving them the same opportunities to achieve efficiency, productivity and security as the larger end of town.”
The new pre-packaged lineup starts with Print Insights, priced from $3.50 a week. This is a reporting tool providing visibility into print usage and costs, said to be perfect for small businesses.
The managed services package relevant to small and mid-sized businesses is MDS Essentials, which Canon describes as “the most cost up to effective way to introduce a managed service,” and says it is suitable for businesses with up to 500 seats and up to 20 printers. This package includes monthly print insights reports and unlimited access to the Canon Help Desk.
For larger organisations, there's MDS Select (up to 1000 seats, up to 50 printers, multiple sites) that also includes a dedicated client services manager, project and change management support, and regular reviews and updates.
Canon's uniFlow document management software is a key part of these offerings company's MDS. It makes provision for rules controlling where and how sensitive content is printed and scanned, and generates reports showing what content is being printed, by who and when. Accordingly, most Canon MDS plans are only relevant when the business is using or plans to acquire Canon MFDs that work with uniFlow.
The exception is the completely customisable MDS Enterprise for businesses with more than 1000 employees. This plan takes advantage of the Converga technology that Canon acquired in 2015 to support mixed printer fleets.
IDC ANZ channels, alliances and brokerage research director Adam Dodds that despite IDC's research showing costs are the top concern for 43 percent of small businesses, “print is often being overlooked, with 59% of small businesses not having the company directive to reduce print based costs as part of their cost reduction agenda - despite how easy it is to find savings in this area.”
He added: “Our research also suggests there's a significant disconnect in how small businesses think about cyber security. It's clearly seen as a priority with 64 percent of small businesses stating this is the key driver behind technology investment. Yet, 27 percent of small businesses are not aware of the security risks and potential vulnerabilities of their print environment.”
