Whitepaper: Matching the Printer To Your Business Processes

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Industry Vertical Requirements

As mentioned at the outset, each business tends to have differing needs, but in reality there tends to a common thread of requirements that are required by certain industry verticals. The printing needs of an educational institution for example will likely differ from the requirements of a financial services operation.

Here we consider some of the individual requirements to be found in a number of industry sectors:

Educational: A variety of printed output usually needed, requiring a flexible machine capable of handling both colour presentations and monochrome reading material. However budgets tend to be on the modest side. The solution here must be capable of pull printing. This is where the user prints the document, and then chooses what printer will deliver the output (probably whilst standing next to it). This reduces uncollected printouts and frees up the computer for other tasks and reduces network traffic. Another useful option is the ability to charge the print job to a student’s account, and reloadable card solutions.

Government or Legislative: Government procurement processes tend to be fairly regimented, and are sometimes bound by strict requirements and pre-approved machines. Printed output often requires traceable identification numbers, and security of course is an issue, as is the monitoring of individual printer use, especially in sensitive governmental departments. Power usage can be an issue, but in reality the disposal of old equipment is likely to be of higher concern.

Financial Services: Budgetary issues tend to less of a consideration here, but security remains a top priority to ensure confidentially. This sector is fast moving, often dealing with pressing time frames, but print tracking and monitoring options are often required, with the entire document management solution operating within rigorous corporate guidelines.

Healthcare: Again this is another sector where data confidentially is a big requirement, but has to be balanced against the need for information accuracy and speedy on-demand access. This sector is typically subjected to a lot of compliance issues and guidelines, with all the management control systems that this entails.

Legal Services: Again confidentially and security are two pressing document management requirements, but this sector often needs high-performing and reliable equipment to meet critical deadlines, with prompt maintenance and servicing options subject to rigorous service level agreements (SLAs). Cost allocation to clients is also very important in this sector (client billing).

These are just some of the typical requirements for different vertical sectors.

Departmental Needs

Just as each business tends to be different, often so too are the individual departments within that business. The marketing department, with its need to produce glossy promotional material, often has differing output needs to that of the sales department.

The HR or finance department meanwhile produces confidential materials (staff assessments, financial reports etc) and it often requires its own dedicated machine, or at least the secure collection of printed material.

So whilst the IT manager needs to understand the organisational workflow and document management needs, he or she also has to take into account the differing needs of each department, and plan accordingly.

Security Considerations

The number of security breaches are increasing, and organisations are facing tougher financial regulatory penalties for the disclosure (accidental or otherwise) of confidential material. Thus security is becoming an increasing top concern for organisations, and consequently IT management.

The usual focus has been on intrusion prevention, firewalls, anti virus etc, but there is increasing recognition that security also plays a part in document management and printing areas as well. After all, digital peripherals can also open the corporate network to malicious attacks.

And any printers now have some form of hard drives that buffers data. But what happens to this data if the machine is taken away for repair or disposal when it reaches end of life?

And one of the biggest security risks is when confidential documents are printed but are not collected. So if your organisation handles sensitive information, and most businesses do, using a security control suite makes great sense.

All of these risks have resulted in the increasing use of smartcards, biometrics, print monitoring, and indeed encryption in the modern printing solution.

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