Is Printing the CFO's Business, Too?

16.06.2011
This recession and post-recession season have CFOs going blind trying to eke pennies out of the bottom line. Many are likely summoning their inner Scotty from "Star Trek" and saying to the CEO, "I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain!" But a managed print services firm believes you might have missed one big savings opportunity.

"CFOs around the world, including myself, are always looking for cost-savings, especially in a recession and slow-growth recovery period. Many of us have run out of plain-old headcount reductions and we're searching for something else," says Joseph Busky, CFO for Chicago-based .

That "something else," he says, can be found in managed print services. His firm, which caters to Fortune 2000 firms that have more than a $1 million in out-of-house printing expenses with its IW Enterprise service, encourages companies to revamp those strategies.

"A lot of companies have an in-house print services manager who has built a close relationship with a local printer. Chances are, they haven't looked around at other options or renegotiated prices in a long time," he says. Busky concludes that organizations have to be awakened to the costs of a lax print-services situation, and that is why InnerWorkings targets its pitch toward the CFO.

"Printing is a non-core function for most businesses, so outsourcing it is logical," he says. InnerWorkings' approach is to replace the in-house print services manager with a contracted one. That person then uses InnerWorkings' proprietary database of 8,000 printers to find the best price for each print job's requirement. "We call up the right equipment in the right geography for the right price," he says.