Printer Fleet Management

If you walk into a growing business and see a different printer in every corner, with some new and some barely hanging on, you can usually guess what’s happening behind the scenes. It’s a situation where the print environment is managing the business, not the other way around.

And here’s a stat worth considering as you think about your office: organizations can waste up to 3% of their annual budget on unnecessary printing expenses. If your business doesn’t “own” the print environment, it can hurt your bottom line.

As businesses scale past 15+ devices, this problem will only get worse. A badly managed print environment can lead to costs rising, downtime becoming normal, IT getting buried in random printer tickets, and leadership starting to wonder, “Is this really the best we can do?”

What would happen if your office network went dark tomorrow? You would have no access to files stored in cloud, no way to email clients, and no printers to push through time-sensitive documents. For too many businesses, this is a reality. In fact, nearly six in ten companies report that cybersecurity incidents caused moderate to severe disruption in the past year.

And cyber threats don’t just affect big corporations. Small and mid-sized businesses are increasingly targeted because attackers know resources are limited and defenses are often patchy. With remote work, mobile devices, and cloud platforms expanding the “attack surface,” it’s easier than ever for hackers to find an entry point.

If you’re running a large business, chances are your copier and printer fleet feels a little more like a chaotic traffic jam than a well-orchestrated system. You might have multiple devices across multiple floors or even multiple states, which means IT is constantly fielding supply requests, service calls, and error messages. And let’s be honest, nobody wants their CIO spending Monday morning hunting down why “Printer 12B” is flashing a cryptic error code again.

As a print vendor, we’ve been helping organizations of all sizes tame their printer fleets for over 35 years. As an authorized Xerox partner, we specialize in making large fleets run smoothly, securely, and cost-effectively.

In this guide, we’ll walk through practical steps you can take to optimize your printer fleet—whether that means trimming excess devices, streamlining supplies, or tightening up security.

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If you work in an office, you know how much our world still depends on printers, even in an increasingly digital age. But if going green is your goal, the good news is that sustainable printing doesn’t mean giving up your printers. Sustainable printing is about using smarter tools, making better choices, and understanding how to reduce waste without disrupting your workflow.

That matters more than ever. According to the Natural Marketing Institute, 58% of U.S. consumers consider a company’s environmental footprint when deciding where to spend their money. It’s clear that how we manage printing can have a real impact, not just on the planet, but on your bottom line and brand perception too.

Running a school means managing a thousand things at once. This includes printers. However, keeping them up and running often ends up near the bottom of that list. Whether you're printing lesson plans, testing materials, or administrative paperwork, printing is a major part of school operations. And it can quietly drain your budget and staff time.

At STPT, we've spent over 35 years helping schools regain control over their print environments. Excessive printing costs can add thousands of dollars to a school's monthly expenses, creating chaos with overflowing toner closets, malfunctioning devices, and mounting invoices. That's where Managed Print Services (MPS) comes in as a reliable solution to streamline print management and reduce costs.

This blog explores whether MPS is the right fit for your school. We’ll break down what MPS is, its biggest benefits, its potential drawbacks, and how to decide if it makes sense for your school.