In a busy primary school environment, there are two things you could always do with more of: time and money. Stuart Brookes, EMEA head of sales & channel, PaperCut talks about why schools need printing that just works
For finance teams managing school budgets, controlling print costs can feel like a constant battle. The printing paradox is that the more convenient it is to print, the more your staff will do it – which can quickly spiral out of control. When staff are printing without any oversight, you only know how much you’re spending when the bills start piling up each term.
But there IS a way for primary schools to print smarter, faster and cost-effectively.
It’s called cloud printing.
Cloud Printing 101: Understanding The Benefits
Cloud-based printing is a system that allows you to send print jobs over the internet, without needing to be directly connected to a specific printer. In a primary school setting, this means that teachers and staff can print documents from their smartphone, tablet, or device, and collect them at any printer on the network.
Compared with on-premises print infrastructure, cloud printing offers significant benefits. The big one is that your staff and teachers enjoy seamless printing from any device and location. All they need is an internet connection and they can send a print job to the nearest printer – no more searching for lost documents or running to a far off printer!
By eliminating on-site print servers, your school can cut costs associated with hardware and maintenance. You can easily add or remove printers and users as your school’s needs change, without any disruption to school operations and system performance. Plus, it delivers centralised control and visibility over your print environment, helping IT teams optimise print usage and minimise waste. Now you know the basics, let’s drill down into two specific areas: financial impact and efficiency gains.
Cost Savings Through Cloud Print Management
Cloud printing can help your primary school reduce costs in several ways:
Serverless printing (or virtual servers): On-site print servers require regular maintenance and updates. Removing the need for physical servers can save educational institutions circa £1,000 per server each month, according to some calculations.
Reducing waste: When left unchecked, excessive printing can lead to major paper and toner usage. Cloud printing management enables the implementation of print policies such as duplex printing and department quotas, which can significantly reduce unnecessary printing. Some schools have reported up to a 70% reduction in printing costs as a result.
Tracking printing: The real superpower of cloud print management is that it gives your IT team total visibility over your entire school print environment, centralising control in a single dashboard for easy management. Because the IT department sees who prints what, how much and when, they can allocate print resources more effectively and tailor your school’s print management strategy to maximise your spend.
Minimising uncollected print jobs: Wasted pages are wasted money. Cloud print management solutions like PaperCut Hive have a secure print release feature, so users must authenticate themselves at the printer to release the print job. Not only is this a huge security advantage, but it means that staff only end up printing what they need. With 15% of print jobs in the hold/release queue never actually printed, that’s a big saving on paper, ink and toner!
Optimising your printer fleet: Cloud print management software enables schools to automatically direct jobs to the most cost-efficient printers. Upgrading your fleet to new, cloud-connected MFDs is an upfront cost, but can save you up to 30% on your printer energy bill in the long run.
Cost insights and reporting: To reduce spending, you first need to know where your money is going. Cloud print management software generates automated reports to analyse printing expenditure across different departments, helping identify areas to cut down on waste and streamline your printer fleet.
As an example of the cost-saving power of cloud printing, Minehead Middle School in the UK educates 600 students and employs more than 100 staff – so their printing costs were quickly getting out of hand. After implementing PaperCut’s cloud print management solution PaperCut Hive, the IT team was able to control print volume, restrict printing access and enforce quotas. The result? A 90% decrease in student printing and drastically reduced costs.
If you need some more convincing, we have a calculator that helps you work out your ROI.
A Time-Saving Solution For Primary Schools
With cloud print management, printing is no longer about a direct connection between one computer and one printer: it allows users to print from any device to any printer at the click of a button. Here’s how that translates into time-saving efficiency gains:
Enhanced mobility and flexibility: Cloud printing enables staff and teachers to print from their laptop, tablet, or smartphone, and retrieve documents from any printer on the network. This flexibility reduces the time spent transferring files between devices or travelling between locations to access the print job.
A seamless printing experience: With cloud print management software embedded in every MFD, the printing experience is the same, no matter the device – so users don’t need to waste time working out how to operate the printer.
Simplified IT management: Managing print drivers, queues and users across a large fleet of printers can be incredibly time-consuming for IT staff. Cloud print management centralises administration and automates tasks such as deployment of print drivers and queues, saving the time spent on individual device configurations. Plus, the simpler your print system for your users, the less time your IT team need to spend on print-related support requests.
Improved security and compliance: Features like secure release printing reduce the risk of unauthorised access to sensitive documents. This not only protects student and staff information but helps prevent data breaches which would require significant time and focus from your IT department. With automated reporting and audit trails, compliance with data regulations is also quicker and easier to manage.
By switching to cloud-based print management systems, primary schools can deliver a streamlined printing process for teachers and staff. Secure print release and tracking features help reduce waste, encourage responsible printing and optimise your print resources. Over time, these changes add up to a more efficient and cost-effective print environment, saving your school both time and money.
This is a sponsored article, brought to you by PaperCut
To find out more about PaperCut products and services, visit: https://www.papercut.com/
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