Most businesses don’t think about their printers until one of them stops working. By then, someone is already digging through a supply closet for toner, calling around to figure out which vendor services which machine, or trying to explain to a frustrated employee why the printer down the hall has been broken for three days.
Managed Print Services exists to take that entire category of problems off your plate. Instead of your team managing printers, toner, service calls, and vendor relationships piecemeal, ABS manages the fleet as a whole, so your office runs smoothly and nobody on your staff has to become an accidental printer administrator.
What Managed Print Services Actually Includes
At its core, Managed Print Services means ABS takes ownership of how your printing environment runs day to day. That includes monitoring toner levels so supplies arrive before you run out, tracking service needs so issues get addressed proactively instead of after a breakdown, and giving you visibility into what your printing actually costs, department by department or device by device. It also means looking at your fleet as a whole rather than one printer at a time. Many offices accumulate printers over the years, a few different brands, several ages, scattered across departments without much thought to whether that setup still makes sense. Managed Print Services includes evaluating that fleet and consolidating it down to the right number of the right machines, placed where people actually need them.
Where the Cost Savings Actually Come From
The savings aren’t just about negotiating a better price on toner. They come from several places at once:
Reduced waste. When nobody is tracking who prints what, a surprising amount of unnecessary printing happens, forgotten jobs, duplicate prints, personal use nobody’s watching. Visibility into print activity on its own tends to reduce unnecessary volume.
Fewer service disruptions. An aging, poorly matched fleet breaks down more often, and every breakdown costs staff time even if the repair itself is quick. Proactive monitoring catches problems earlier, often before they cause a full stoppage.
Right-sized equipment. A department printing a few pages a day doesn’t need the same machine as one running high volumes constantly. Matching machines to actual usage, rather than whatever was purchased years ago, cuts down on both wasted capacity and machines straining past what they’re built for.
Example: A mid-sized law firm had accumulated eight printers across three brands over a decade, several purchased individually as old ones failed, with no consistent supply vendor. A fleet assessment consolidated that down to four appropriately placed devices, with toner shipped automatically and a single point of contact for service, cutting both monthly costs and the time staff spent managing supply orders.
Example: A manufacturing office was routinely paying rush fees for toner because nobody tracked usage until a machine ran dry mid-shift. With Managed Print Services monitoring supply levels automatically, toner ships before it’s needed, removing the scramble entirely.
The No-Charge Fleet Assessment
Before recommending any changes, ABS starts with a no-charge fleet assessment, a straightforward look at what you currently have, how it’s being used, and where the inefficiencies actually are. There’s no cost and no obligation attached to it. For a lot of businesses, this step alone is eye-opening simply because nobody has looked at the fleet as a whole in years.
The assessment typically covers device count and age, usage patterns by department, current service arrangements, and an estimate of what consolidation or better-matched equipment could save.
Who Benefits Most
Managed Print Services tends to matter most for businesses with multiple departments, multiple locations, or a fleet that’s grown organically rather than by design, which describes a lot of offices in healthcare, education, government, financial services, and similar multi-department organizations. If your business has more than a couple of printers and nobody has a clear picture of what they collectively cost to run, there’s likely room to improve.
Not sure what your current fleet is actually costing you? Contact ABS for a no-charge fleet assessment, we’ll help you find out.
