Controlling Costs - Overview

As the volume of information flowing through the enterprise increases approximately 50% a year¹, there’s no doubt controlling the costs of managing business critical documents is an increasingly formidable challenge.

Yet one of the findings in a recent IDC survey of C-level and IT management showed that many of these executives assumed that their existing document management costs and consequences were insignificant. They didn't realize how much money their organizations were actually spending beyond the highly visible costs of paper, toner, and hardcopy-device hardware.²

Fragmented cost ownership and the distribution and management of various components in the document life cycle across different departments obscured the huge costs, which could be as much as 11% in manufacturing to 15% in healthcare as a percentage of revenue, according to previous IDC research.³

The total management costs over the full lifecycle of business critical documents can be considered in two categories: those that are directly measurable, ‘hard costs’ (e.g. hardware, consumables), and inefficiencies that are less visible and are only measured indirectly (e.g. wasted time spent looking for information).

Though difficult to quantify, it is clear the cost associated with iWorkers’ inefficient access to business information at the right time, in the right form, is far more significant than hardware and consumables.

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Controlling Costs - Business Outcomes

Extending Control

You’ve had some success in controlling your consumables costs (e.g., paper consumption) in specific locations—but you’d like to extend this control to other locations, and additional document-related costs across the enterprise.

The ability to maximize cost savings across the enterprise begins with a deep understanding of the capabilities, limitations and true costs of your current business critical document processes.

Ricoh MDS Output Analysis Service focuses on visible and hidden costs of your document production environment, your current print performance and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Ricoh MDS Process Analysis looks at your current document intensive processes and all the resources they require, highlighting bottlenecks, waste, production flow, resource usage and other identified areas for cost reduction.

Cost control can also help the environment. Ricoh MDS Environmental Impact Analysis helps uncover the environmental impact and associated costs of your current document-based processes: power consumption, paper consumption and CO₂ emissions.

These services provide accurate baselines for designing ways to optimize these processes so they better align with your strategic objectives, and drive measurable and sustained cost savings:

• Ricoh MDS Environmental Sustainability Design for reduced cost and less impact on the environment
• Ricoh MDS Output Solution Design for strategic integration of technology, process, tools and people to improve efficiency and reduce cost in your output environment
• Ricoh Process Solution Design for re-engineering document processes in order to improve organizational efficiency and/or reduce operating expense

Transforming Processes

You recognize the additional costs of maintaining redundant silos of information throughout the organization—and this creates costly inefficiencies as iWorkers struggle to find information across them. How do you transform these processes to cut out cost and enhance productivity?

To better control costs, you need to re-engineer business critical document processes to better align leadership goals and end-user behaviors. A roadmap for transformation is essential for success.

Ricoh MDS Document Process Optimization service targets specific document processes for re-engineering and/or automating to drive down costs. This includes a roadmap for streamlining processes end-to-end (from input to throughput to output) such as:

• On-demand fulfillment processes for customer communications such as account information, product status, updates and alerts, and general customer communications
• Production and fulfillment of technical documents, usually between business units or corporate enterprises
• Regulatory Compliance document processes designed to help ensure compliance with regulatory requirements
• Financial document processes for the accurate and complete capture, reporting and archiving of financial information, e.g. invoicing, accounts payable, financial statements, and payment of customers and suppliers.

More Efficient IT Staff

Your IT staff spends a disproportionate amount of time responding to print-related questions and incidents and managing the administrative aspects of print operations.

You want your IT staff focused on revenue driving initiatives and enabling the organization to be more competitive. Off loading print-related support and administration allows IT and Help Desk resources to focus on their core competencies. Not only do you better control your IT and Help Desk costs, you enhance end-user satisfaction.

Ricoh MDS Service Desk Integration minimizes the amount of time required by your IT Staff to support your printer fleet infrastructure. Ricoh MDS can serve as a central contact point for the entire printer fleet and handle more efficiently your printer related help desk calls.

Ricoh MDS Multi-Vendor Management reduces your vendor management effort and cost. The service simplifies reporting, escalation activities and Service Level Management through a single point of contact. You can leverage greater spending as you contract with fewer vendors to manage document processes, while better ensuring the level of service.

Ricoh MDS Asset Management reduces cycle time and administrative costs associated with updating, searching for and tracking the location, ownership and leases/depreciations of technology assets.

Meeting the Goal of Continuous Improvement

A key corporate goal for your organization is continuous improvement — but how do you demonstrate improved cost control over time in business critical document processes?

Having a window into the performance of all aspects of business critical document processes is fundamental to continuous improvement, including on-going cost control.

By providing accurate, timely and more complete data, Ricoh MDS Management Information Reporting can help you make sound, defensible business decisions. These reports can be departmental or global, and aligned with local operating company metrics. Management Information Reporting not only gives you full visibility into all the elements of your MDS program, you’ll have proactive data analysis that can also drive Ricoh MDS Optimization Consultancy service.

Ricoh MDS Optimization Consultancy can assess the progress of your cost control initiatives against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) typically identified in the Process Analysis or Process Solution Design stages, and the results can be used to better communicate cost savings to stakeholders.

Finally, Ricoh Consumables Management minimizes device interruptions for increased productivity and cost savings through proactive management of your consumables needs for output devices.

Controlling Costs - Best Practices

Ricoh MDS helps you better control costs throughout the document lifecycle for consistent, long-term savings. Controlled costs through more efficient processes can free resources and time to devote to increasing competitiveness and revenue generating initiatives.

Ricoh is a global leader in Managed Print Services (MPS) and Managed Document Services (MDS). The knowledge and best practices we accumulate in thousands of engagements worldwide become powerful assets in our Ricoh MDS portfolio. Application of this knowledge and these best practices is the engine that drives our continuous improvement efforts.

Here are some of the best practices that focus on controlling costs in business critical document processes:

• Measure Costs against Key Performance Indicators(KPIs)
• Fleet Cost Control
• Minimize Power Costs
• Reduce Consumables Costs
• Redirect Printing to Most Cost Efficient Device
• Cost Effective Asset Management
• Automate Manual Processes
• Shorten Process Cycle Time
• Ensure Employees Adapt to More Cost Effective Processes

Click below for detailed explanations of these best practices:

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Controlling Costs - How We Solve This

The Ricoh MDS Services Delivery Portfolio offers all the services required to design, construct, maintain, and optimize a highly efficient information infrastructure that is aligned with your need to reduce and control your costs. Examples of Ricoh MDS service offerings are:

• Environmental Impact Analysis and Sustainability Design
• Output & Process Analysis and Solutions Design
• Document Process Optimization
• Management Information Reporting
• Multi-vendor Management
• Asset Management
• Service Desk Integration
• Consumables Management
• Optimization Consulting

The above are among the service offerings that can have the greatest impact on controlling costs, however virtually all services in Ricoh's Services Delivery Portfolio directly impact or support your cost containment initiatives. While every Ricoh Managed Document Services Engagement is unique and tailored to your environment, you can see examples of Ricoh MDS services that address Controlling Costs.

Controlling Costs - Related Info