December 2014 | The Sunday Business Post | 47

The balancing acTSuStainable technology

Managed print holds key to greater sustainabilityManaged print services are successfully driving down the consumption of energy and consumables in the workplace

rint has long been a target of the environ-mental warrior and

the much vaunted prospect of the paperless office has never quite materialised. Nonethe-less, managed print services are helping organisations to keep print, paper and con-sumables under control and in the process, contribute to greater sustainability in the workplace.

“Managed print services (MPS) involve the consoli-dation of hardware, bringing reductions in devices and con-sumables usage,” said Martin Deignan, country manager with Oki.

“For many years, managed print was the preserve of the larger corporates, but it’s something that SMEs are now aware of as a concept and one from which they can benefit. We look for companies that buy a minimum of 20 reams of paper or 10,000 pages per month. In most cases, there are possibilities for savings of between 25 and 35 per cent over the lifetime of the con-tract,” said Deignan.

“The Hastings Hotel Group, for example, were able to achieve cost savings of 30 per cent on their annual print bill and extend their environmen-tal credentials, thanks to an MPS solution from Oki,” he said.

It’s not just about con-solidating the number of on-premise devices. It’s also about device optimisation or combining printers, faxes, copiers and scanners into a

single multifunction device, which reduces power con-sumption and consumables through document digitisa-tion.

“There’s further develop-ment all the time in terms of managed document solutions (MDS), which to some extent take paper out of the equation and digitise everything,” said Deignan.

While on the surface MDS might appear to cannibalise traditional print contracts, it’s a strategy that Deignan is prepared to pursue as a means of winning more overall busi-ness.

“It’s still early days for MDS, but customers are starting to ask for it. You might find that they don’t want some of the more sophisticated software solutions. They just want the free versions. MDS helps to make processes more efficient and that has a strong appeal for many organisations,” he said.

Gary Hopwood, general manager with Ricoh Ireland, sees cost reduction as the biggest driver of sustainable technology in the print envi-ronment.

“We see organisations look-ing closely at energy-efficient devices and related managed services. It’s important that a technology solution is sup-ported on an ongoing basis to ensure it remains efficient,” he said.

But potential risks to sus-tainability are ever present, particularly around what some see as shortening hardware as-set life cycles.

“Do you make a robust piece of technology that’s obsolete in two years? Pay-as-you-go charging models take the risk away from consumers, but this transfers the risk onto man-ufacturers. The solution is to design technology that can be upgraded during its lifetime with software upgrades. This extends the life of physical hardware through in-service upgrade,” he said.

To support this stance even further, Ricoh Ireland has just been accredited with the ‘Business Working Respon-sibly Mark’ for best practice achievements in the areas of corporate responsibility and sustainability.

Deignan cites one of the biggest risks to sustainability as the pattern of device usage by the consumer and not the technology itself.

“The biggest challenge we see is around consumables us-age. For example, most com-panies want a good handle on their colour printing as that’s more expensive. So we might put a rule in place that restricts the number of users who can use colour or reduce the num-ber of colour prints per month. Policy can be set centrally and as long as the printer is on the network it can be pushed out to each device,” he said.

Deignan believes that the onus is on manufacturers to push the green agenda and help consumers of their technology to optimise print and document environments which promote sustainability.

“I won’t come across a ten-der that doesn’t mention sus-tainability, but it’s always quite general and well-intentioned. In my experience, there’s a far higher importance attached to sustainability in the Nordic countries and Germany. Ire-land is in the middle,” he said.

iS being lean More iMportant than being green?the adoption of sustainable technology must be framed in the context of cost savings, writes Deirdre cashion

nfrastructure archi-tecture is difficult at the best of times, with

myriad technologies and de-livery channels now in play. But in the hard-nosed world of business where everything counts in large amounts, does the drive for sustainability make the ICT decision-mak-ing process even more diffi-cult?

“Any time we get involved in negotiations, sustainability is quite far down the list,” said Paul Kane, interim sales and marketing manager with da-tacentre provider Servecentric.

“We have several different ISO accreditations including ISO14001 for sustainability. But no one asks for that. The one we get asked for the most is the one for data security, ISO27001. The only time sus-tainability will come into it is when we’re asked about our charges per kW hour.”

Davin Cody, converged in-frastructure specialist with HP, agrees.

“The green agenda is a nice tick box to have, but ultimately it still comes down to the cost to the organisation of procure-ment and running the envi-ronment over its lifespan. And whether that’s in the cloud or on premise, really depends on the organisation’s security pol-icy and cost,” he said.

“When it comes to technol-ogy and sustainability, the two help each other in that they can save money and meet the green agenda at the same time. I don’t think the two are mu-tually exclusive.”

Gary Hopwood, general manager with Ricoh Ireland, believes that all companies have a stance on corporate responsibility, although larger companies tend to have more to lose if they are not acting in a

sustainable manner.“Many organisations make

their position clear on sustain-ability and some even set clear and measurable goals. For ex-ample, we set targets across the group at Ricoh which we are currently ahead of. These include reducing CO2 emis-sions by 30 per cent by 2020 and 87.5 per cent by 2050 from the fiscal 2000 level,” he said.

Servecentric’s main op-erating parameter is power availability and whereas new clients may have been quoted in the past based on the space they required in the data cen-tre, it’s now firmly based on their power requirements.

“Sustainability comes into the conversation because if you can save your actual power consumption charges by placing infrastructure in a datacentre, it’s a saving to the company,” said Kane.

“Companies by their nature are there to make money and to go green, just for the sake of it and not to make savings, doesn’t make sense.”

Kane believes that any de-bate around sustainability has to be framed in the context of cost-savings.

“Every company needs to concentrate on cost and re-turn from the point of view of a business argument. And companies providing green technology need to look at it that way. There has to be a business case for using that technology or having sustain-ability at the heart of it and the main argument is that it is going to save costs,” he said.

The only time sustainability will come into it is when we’re asked about our charges per kW hourPaul Kane, Servecentric

p

i

Martin Deignan,

country manager

with Oki

Gary Hopwood,

general manager with

Ricoh Ireland

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