Ammunition for addressing the top three worries about run-away color costs

Demand for color printers and multifunction products (MFPs) continues to climb, with some industry reports estimating that the number of color pages created by the year 2010 will reach 489 billion, up from about 268 billion pages two years ago. "The page volumes will almost double in five years," notes Tara Agen, America's LaserJet strategy and business planner at Hewlett-Packard.

Despite the strong interest in color, many end users continue to voice concerns about further color investments, citing lingering concerns that in-house color is still too expensive and not as cost-efficient as sending print jobs to commercial shops.

For solution providers, the ability to address these concerns and offer insights about best practices for color printing can solidify their status as trusted advisors and help customers understand when it's beneficial for them to expand their color commitment. Here's help for responding to three top cost concerns.

Costs are Difficult to Monitor

Although runaway color printing costs can sap the ROI of in-house investments, new print-environment assessment tools are making it easier to avoid unpleasant financial surprises.

For example, FMAudit recently released new total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) reporting capabilities for its Viewer USB, Onsite and WebAudit monitoring products. The new reporting module, which is free to FMAudit's Enterprise Program customers, gathers cost-per-page (CPP) and TCO statistics by collecting toner usage data directly from microprocessor chips in the cartridge. The TCO analysis pulls information about consumables and hardware from the company's database of thousands of devices. The TCO calculator also incorporates cost information about parts related to consumables, such as fuser belts and imaging kits.

Similarly, Print Audit 5, from Print Audit offers a suite of modules for analyzing and optimizing printer and MFP usage. Reports can distinguish between color and monochrome print jobs to give end users a clear picture of their color costs. A queuing feature in the suite can also help solutions providers manage CPP contracts through a utility that re-directs appropriate jobs to networked devices designated for CPP programs, even if an end user tries to send the document to a standalone printer or other unmanaged hardware.

Solution providers have a new message for clients who balk at color costs: Intense competition for color market share is pushing vendors to increase the yield and reduce the CPP of color cartridges. Lexmark, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard and others have introduced longer-life cartridges in the past year that translate into cost savings of between 5 and 10 percent, according to market researcher Current Analysis.

Commercial vs. In-House

While offset printers, digital presses, and copy shops can be effective for large print runs and when the job requires custom colors or specialized finishing, this option is becoming increasingly costly for much of the marketing communications and business documents companies produce. The problems: lead times from commercial outfits can stretch into weeks, while print-run minimums result in unnecessary costs. In addition, end users with security and privacy concerns, including companies that need to protect intellectual property prior to a major product release, have little control of information that's being sent to a print shop.

In-house color provides a ready solution for these problems. End users print the volumes they need without incurring any overrun waste, while direct access to in-house color printers and MFPs allow for fast turnarounds and unlimited customization. Sensitive information is protected thanks to security controls that require PINs and passwords to release jobs to the intended recipients.