Lexmark Cloud Print Management

Challenge

Like many of its customers, Lexmark faced the challenge of managing a variety of print servers, which put pressure on IT resources and took administrators away from other critical tasks. Managing 120 locations and 110 servers dedicated to print, along with 13,000 end users, meant the company spent significant time and money supporting server maintenance.

The organisation knew that moving to a cloud print solution could eliminate a portion of physical print servers, streamline print environment management and increase security across the network. According to Ed Buhler, Lexmark Global Manager for IT, gaining centralised control of print servers could drive productivity and minimise security breach risks.

“Having fewer devices means fewer devices to patch, so we can react faster to a potential cybercrime or virus. It also means less upgrades and fewer devices that aren’t controlled by IT, which often end up being shared drive servers containing data we cannot control,” says Buhler.

Solution

Lexmark’s migration to Cloud Print Management has yielded positive results. The solution simplifies the experience for users with a single print driver that can print to any device within the enterprise. If a user moves to a different role or new location in the company, there is no need to delete old print drivers and add new ones.

Lexmark Cloud Print Management also reduces time-consuming IT tasks. When new printers are enrolled, all applications needed for the device to successfully communicate back to the Lexmark Cloud are deployed. This significantly reduces the burden on IT resources, as they no longer must spend time pushing updates and security patches to enterprise devices.

Results

Since deploying Cloud Print Management, Lexmark moved from 110 dedicated print servers to zero and saved over $650,000 annually by eliminating the servers. Total print spend was reduced by 54 percent with a 48 percent reduction in printed pages, and supplies usage has been lowered by 77 percent.

For organisations looking to improve security through centralisation, Cloud Print Management is smart strategy. With the solution, data is protected as it transitions through the system, providing an extra layer of security to ensure that information is protected.

“In this modern day of viruses and malware and people trying to attack us with ransomware, the less machines we have out there, the more we minimise our risk,” says Buhler.