HP offers Smart Print Services to companies

MANILA, Philippines - Aside from continuously flooding the market with numerous kinds of printers for every conceivable type of users, HP Philippines’ Imaging and Printing Group is also now pushing what it calls as Smart Print Services as a fitting solution especially during hard times when efficiency and savings matter most.

In a recent press briefing designed to highlight HP’s printing innovations that can help ease companies’ recession pains, HP executives said their Smart Print Services, which introduce companies to different ways of effectively managing and optimizing their imaging and printing resources, could slice off an average of 30 percent from companies’ overall document management costs every year.

They added that the HP Smart Print Services offer businesses the opportunity to upgrade their printer fleet, which will help reduce their total cost of ownership by managing capital outlay, managing older equipment effectively and environmentally, and simplifying hardware procurement.

As economies around the world turn bearish, industry analyst firm IDC has noted users’ increased preference to deploy utility-based contracts like managed print services to help them ride out the crisis.

“Businesses today are looking for easy-to-implement solutions with immediate tangible cost savings and optimized infrastructure impact. According to recent research conducted across the Asia-Pacific, about 15-20 percent of all organizations interviewed stated that they planned to implement a document-related solution or service in a year or two,” said Suchitra Narayan, research manager for peripherals research of IDC Asia-Pacific.

In the Asia-Pacific region, HP said its managed print services have experienced strong growth and increased customer traction with total contract value growing by 108 percent in financial year 2008 compared to the previous year. 

3M and Viacom are two of these customers, which have achieved cost reductions in their output environments, HP executives disclosed. They, however, declined to name local customers who have signed up for Smart Print Services at this point.

At the same media briefing, HP officials unveiled two new series each for Officejet (HP Officejet Pro 8000 and HP Officejet 6500 All-in-One), LaserJets (HP LaserJet P2035 and HP LaserJet P2055), and Scanjets (HP Scanjet 5000 and HP Scanjet 7000).

At price points made attractive for the small and medium business (SMB) segment, local HP executives said these new printers are also energy-efficient and equipped with unique HP innovations that could further contribute to companies’ efforts to better control their capital and operating expenditures.