The nature of the workplace is changing. For many professionals, gone are the days of desks in a bullpen surrounding a shared reception desk and printer. The real estate industry has not been untouched by the effects of COVID-19 in this way. With many customers opting for virtual tours of properties and Zoom calls rather than office meetings, professionals in the real estate industry need to think about how they can adjust the way they work.
While coordinating a remote and in-person workforce, professionals often forget to look at a key piece of infrastructure that affects their entire business - the printer. Many successful real estate firms are upgrading their print environment with new multifunction printers (MFP) to accommodate modern workers, and get a competitive edge in the market with the help of Managed Print Services (MPS). Here are a few reasons why it may be time for your real estate office to reevaluate its print environment.
How Managed Print Services Can Upgrade Your Office Print Environment
The Cost of Desktop Printers
Having a printer on the desk of every agent employed at a real estate firm is attractive because of imagined convenience; no one has to wait on a community printer, everyone has the tools to print at their desks. The truth is though, these printers are expensive and often can be more expensive per page to use than a communal printer.
The convenience of individual desktop printers is an antiquated notion as well. We are no longer in the days of printing hundreds of documents and maintaining file cabinets. Today's file cabinet is well-organized cloud storage. Every desktop printer assigned to an agent is a potential waste of costs as unneeded copies are printed, and it lays dormant more than it is used.
Additionally, remote work for many is a part of life now, and it's time for a modern printing environment to accommodate this. A managed print solution allows you to solve these problems, while giving you expert partners who will optimize your print fleet saving your time and money.
IT Issues and Troubleshooting
It's not uncommon for a company's IT department to spend 30-50% of their time troubleshooting printer issues. When real estate offices rely on their printers to get work done, these issues can cause embarrassing delays and a sharp loss in productivity. Offices don't have an IT team just for printers, and the last thing brokers want is an agent troubleshooting a printer while their clients go neglected.
Managed Print Services put printer maintenance and troubleshooting in the hands of a team whose expertise lies exclusively in printing. This opens up the IT team to work on the things they need and allows agents to work with their customers, without worrying about the printer.
Security and Connectivity
A real estate office needs to maintain the security and confidentiality of client and internal documents. An agent being able to connect to a printer remotely, however, is a convenience that many simply can't do without today. Ensuring that only those who have been authorized to access scanned documents and printers do so can be a headache that many companies are not ready to address on their own.
An upgraded multifunction printer can offer a wealth of security options and tools alleviating the burden from real estate offices.
Infrastructure Management
Managing your printer fleet can be time-consuming and stressful, and repairs can be massive costs at unexpected times. Partnering with an expert for Managed Print Services can save both money and time. A managed print service provider is an expert at finding exactly the right tools for what your office needs, mitigating underutilized equipment.
Budgeting and Planning
Few companies realize how much they spend on printing. Print equipment, IT support, paper and ink can be huge costs to a company. Tracking these costs should be a normal part of budgeting and planning for your company's success, but it can be difficult to track.
Managed print services can easily track these costs and present easy to read, regular reports. In addition to having these reports to plan for future expenses, Biztech Daily estimates that by outsourcing some or all print management functions to a service provider, businesses can save as much as 30 percent annually, which can be a huge cost savings.
Making a Change with Managed Print Services and Multifunction Printers
Don't let your print environment fall behind the times. Real estate offices’ needs are changing, and to save costs and gain the competitive edge in the market, your team requires the right tools. It could be time to take your evolving office to the next level and advance your printing environment today.
