1. Ownership on printing – A challenge or an opportunity?
For years the Total Cost of Printing (TCoP) has been neglected by many companies, although the
structural saving potential is enormous. One of the main reasons of not capitalizing this 20% - 40%
saving potential is ‘ownership on print services’.
When the network cable entered the conventional copying device, responsibility for maintenance and
support transferred from the Facility department to IT (Western Europe). Often the contractual
responsibility remained at the Facility department. With this transition the first split in ownership and
responsibility occurred. The increased role of the Purchase department in secondary (or non-core)
procurement added an extra challenge in ownership. Most initiatives towards a best practice situation
on print services perish due to this phenomenon. This article will not appoint who has to be owner on
print services, but will answer the questions around why you have to realize single ownership.
Without centralized and single ownership,
centralization of budget, decisions and
responsibilities is a huge task. It is not so
much the initial cost saving: renewal of
depreciated devices or negotiating a new
managed print services engagement, but
implementing and maintaining the realized
cost savings in order to make such an
agreement predictable and profitable
Eight out of ten print services
agreements will show year by year
increasing costs.
Also standardization and centralization projects fail due to the lack of central ownership and central
governance.
A wide supported central print services policy focusing on how to handle print services within the
organization is the first step towards single ownership and the capitalization of structural cost savings.
The print services policy must be supported on C-level in order to accompany the print services policy
with the right mandate. This central and supported print services policy opens the door towards central
procurement, but not yet towards single ownership.
Timengo IPM’s Print Service Governance model captures all of the agreed parameters related to Print
Service Governance, and is used to create structure and order in the governance of print services
provided. It is a unique model, created specifically for each engagement, but details a common
definition needed for good print service governance such as:
 The structure and membership of the Print Service Governance Organization
 The selected framework and processes to be used in Print Service Governance
 The roles, responsibilities and authorities of the members of the Print Service Governance
Organization (including the user organization)
 The reporting framework, like Steering Group’s, project groups, project site groups etc.
 The audit and review processes
 The start-up, continuous governance and closure processes
 The overall governance framework
This model takes care of the ownership question, centralizes and manages results, is objective driven
and quantifies the value of this project to the business.
Copyright Timengo IPM 2013