The Considerable Benefits of Public Sector In-House Printing

1. Better Control

Printing in-house puts the control back in your hands. Rather than having to nervously await your urgent documents being processed at the print shop and returned, you can choose when they are printed and decide the priority of your print jobs to meet your needs. If they are printed on-site, your documents are immediately available without the inconvenience of having to collect them or have them delivered to their destination.

2. Increased Security

With data protection regulations such as GDPR, the handling of sensitive information is always a prime consideration. By avoiding sending sensitive documents to an external print shop for printing, you can maintain better security and governance over the information you’re working with. Print shop employees won’t see your confidential documents and there is no risk of the information being stolen whilst it’s in transit either.
You can even configure your in-house printers to require a code or swipe card before they release sensitive documents. This means people can’t print documents then leave them on the printer. Instead, they have to be at the printer physically to pick up their print-outs, further reducing the risk of unauthorised eyes being able to see sensitive information.

3. Time Saving

When you don’t have to build in long lead times for professional printing and collection, you have more time to spend perfecting the document and ensuring there are no errors. This means you can work on the document right up until the last minute, ensuring all the information is up to date and accurate and making last minute changes if required. Whether this makes a difference of a couple of hours or a few days, the time you claw back can be put to better use on other tasks.

4. The Right Quantity

To make a print run worthwhile for a professional print shop, you often need to order a minimum quantity, whether you need it or not. Printing in-house means you can do short runs when you need to, leading to fewer wasted copies and lower costs. There’s nothing more frustrating (and wasteful) than having to pulp boxes of leaflets because one piece of information has changed.

5. Quality

In-house printing can deliver outputs that are all but indistinguishable from professional printouts in terms of quality, especially if you set your printer up correctly. Given the consistent quality you can achieve from in-house printing, you can save outsourced printing for specialised jobs that require professional equipment. You also have the option to vary the quality of print and paper stock to produce either higher or lower levels, to meet the needs of the job and your budgets.

6. Improved Costs

This will undoubtedly be an important consideration for any public sector organisation! The cost of in-house printing is invariably far lower than the cost of outsourcing to a professional and with print management software that lets you assign printing expenses to cost centres, clients, or specific projects, it can be easy to recoup those costs.

7. Flexibility of Print

With the right equipment in-house, your team can have the flexibility to print when it needs to, make changes to documents as required, and even print from a mobile device.
With the right equipment in place, any organisation can benefit significantly from in-house printing capabilities. Working with a professional print management partner can help you choose the right equipment and configure it correctly, leading to significant cost savings and productivity improvements.

8. Integrated Mailing

Bringing your print provision in-house is perfect for implementing Hybrid Mail, whereby printed mailers can be created by anyone in your team and then securely shared, printed, and posted centrally. By efficiently printing centrally from your own facility you can also print the Mailmark, which avoids franking and thereby reduces your postal costs as well. It also enables you to keep an accurate record of mailings to ensure GDPR compliance and provides a comprehensive audit trail.
You can learn more about how Birmingham City Council successfully uses Hybrid Mail here. 

Further Help

To find out more about the options and benefits of in-house printing why not contact the Konica Minolta team today. We can help you move the bulk of your printing in-house and enjoy the considerable range of benefits this will give you.

Glyn Williams, PP & IP Channel Manager – Private & Public Sector at Konica Minolta Business Solutions (UK) Ltd – contact:  glyn.williams@konicaminolta.co.uk