Color Printing Whitepapers
Charging Back: Making Color Pay for Itself
One way to control your costs for color printing is to charge them back to those who are doing the printing. Charging back these costs can help reduce operational costs in two ways.
1. Internal users who are billed for all or some of their color printing are likely to be more aware of, and more mindful about, how much they print—and, as a result, more judicious in their use of printing resources. This can result in less usage.
2. By billing external users, organizations can eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, the color printing and copying costs that they normally absorb on behalf of their clients or patrons.
Color Printing at Work
The right color printing solution can reduce costs and improve efficiency in a variety of printing and imaging environments. The following scenario describes how one organization is using HP color printers to bring a key printing function in-house—and dramatically cut costs and increase efficiency.
The organization: Professional sports team
The situation: Need for an alternative to outsourcing of season-ticket printing
The problems: High printing costs, slow turnarounds, limited ability to accommodate change The solution: HP Color LaserJet 9500 printers
The results: 54 percent reduction in ticket printing costs, as well as faster delivery and increased flexibility
Color Printing: Just What You Need
Color printing has been around for years, but until recently, it was not that widely used in everyday office environments. According to industry observers at CAP Ventures, this may be because color printers have traditionally been perceived as too expensive and complex to be of much value for everyday usage.1 However, now that color devices are becoming more affordable and functional, that’s changing. Even so, it’s still entirely possible to spend too much on color—by failing to carefully match needs to capabilities. As Don Jones points out in The Definitive Guide to Office Color Printing, many organizations don’t understand the range of options available to them for using color; as a result, they “often implement overly expensive solutions for everyday use.”2 This planner is designed to help you align printing requirements with devices in order to get just what you need in color printing—no more, and no less.
Communicating Better With Color
Did you hear the one a few years back about the intern who faxed some charts to a team of reviewers in advance of a meeting—with a cover note directing their attention to the figures in green? Quite a faux pas in the days before color faxes. But it’s no joke: Color can be one of the most powerful tools at an organization’s disposal when it comes to organizing information, increasing understanding, and making people and operations more productive and efficient. And today, the technology for color printing to help achieve these ends is more advanced, accessible and affordable than ever.
“If you want to understand how color impacts us, next time you get in the car, take note of how you stop at red and go on green. Color plays a big role in persuasion. We should understand its value.” –Bryan Eisenberg, ”The Color of Money,” ClickZ Network
Using Color Access Controls to Maximize Value
Organizations that are incorporating color into their printing and imaging environments would like to be able to control access to color printing in order to maximize the return on their investments in color. This doesn’t simply mean limiting access to color, or placing controls on who uses color and who does not, although there is certainly value for some organizations in being able to do just that. But controlling access to color also means being able to monitor how color is used and to track usage by a variety of criteria, in order to make informed decisions that affect operational efficiency. And for some organizations, controlling access to color may also mean accurately determining color usage in order to bill clients or internal users for their usage. Applying color access controls in any or all of these ways enables organizations to use color as effectively and cost-efficiently as possible.