Posts by Phil Pate

Easy way to curb spending waste

Sir Phillip’s investigation into Whitehall spending highlights a problem rampant across the private and public sectors. Staff should be as accountable for their printing costs as for their mobile phone bills, or travel expenses, particularly as the carbon footprint of paper within an organisation is significant and has a very high degree of waste.

An easy and immediate strategy for minimising the kind of printing waste that Sir Phillip has highlighted is to give companies the chance to plan well in advance to control spend and regulate the volume of consumables being used. This service – otherwise known as managed print services, (MPS) - is already giving customers the chance to regain control of their printing requirements, driving printing waste out of our businesses. Managed print services can help organisations save on average 20-40% of hard cost related to print, improve employee productivity and decrease environmental waste.

To address the kind of problems Sir Phillip raises in this report, businesses need to be proactive and forward thinking – and reducing print waste is an excellent and easy first step.

Phil Pate, Managed Print Services Director, Lexmark UK