When we talk about enterprise printing, we’re talking about large-scale business operations, and scale is where print environments often get messy. Bad job routing, poor maintenance schedules, inefficient printer fleets, a lack of transparency and centralized control, employees printing God-knows-what – there’s a lot that can go wrong with enterprise printing. And that matters! On average, each employee prints 10,000 pages per year – and when you start dealing with organisations of tens, or hundreds, or even thousands of staff…yeah, you can see where this is going.
Here are ten of the common enterprise print management challenges, and how to solve them.
Enterprise printing challenge #1: Rising costs of print infrastructure
Print infrastructure costs can quickly escalate due to hardware, consumables, maintenance and energy consumption. And the more inefficient your setup, the higher the cost. Here’s the thing though: without good print management oversight, there’s no way to know whether your enterprise print network is running efficiently. To make your print budget stretch further, we recommend implementing robust print management software, enforcing print policies (like duplex and black-and-white printing), and shifting to an enterprise printing solution that optimizes device usage and consolidates printer fleets. Why pay for printers you’re not even using, right?
Enterprise printing challenge #2: Ensuring print security across distributed workforces
With remote and hybrid work models now business as usual, print security risks – like unauthorized access, phishing scams, unsecured Wi-Fi and data breaches – have exploded. In fact, research suggests that work-from-home employees have already caused a breach in 20% of organisations. But it’s not an impossible situation. You can easily enhance security by implementing measures like secure print release, encrypting print jobs, using VPNs for remote printing, and enforcing authentication methods like PINs or badge access. We’ve covered print security before – extensively.
Enterprise printing challenge #3: Managing diverse print fleets in large organisations
Enterprise companies often struggle with maintaining a variety of printers across multiple locations, leading to inefficiencies and compatibility issues. It’s common sense: a streamlined fleet is easier to maintain, easier to troubleshoot, easier for onboarding newbies, easier for supply management. To get started with this one – and if running out and buying a shiny new fleet is out of the question – you need a centralized print management solution with automated driver updates and monitoring tools. This will help standardize operations and improve your fleet oversight.
Enterprise printing challenge #4: Limited visibility and reporting
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the bigger and more complex your print environment gets, the more important visibility becomes. ** ** Without proper analytics, you’re always going to have trouble tracking print usage and costs. Not to mention print waste (or even inappropriate print behavior). Deploying print management software with real-time monitoring and detailed reporting allows IT teams to optimize device deployment, reduce waste, and improve accountability. If you want to read up on print analytics, start here .
Enterprise printing challenge #5: Compliance with data privacy regulations
Strict regulations like GDPR and HIPAA require enterprises to safeguard printed data. Both in transit and once it’s actually printed. Which regulations apply will change depending on where you do business, but in general it’s a good idea to adopt secure pull printing , implement audit trails, and restrict access to sensitive print jobs to ensure compliance and avoid costly penalties. Especially if you work in finance, healthcare, education and legal services. We’ve got more specific info on your GDPR obligations and requirements over here .
Enterprise printing challenge #6: Integrating cloud printing with legacy systems
Many enterprises still rely on legacy print infrastructure, which often lacks support for modern cloud-based solutions. Sound familiar? Don’t worry, integration with legacy systems is a common hurdle for cloud migration, and there are some easy fixes. Hybrid cloud print solutions or cloud-enabled print servers can bridge the gap, allowing organizations to take advantage of cloud printing while maintaining legacy compatibility. Print management features like pull printing and automated job rerouting can also help balance workloads across both environments, giving you time for a slow, staggered migration.
Enterprise printing challenge #7: Reducing environmental impact
Printing is thirsty work, and high paper and toner consumption both contribute to your environmental footprint. In fact, paper makes up nearly 26% of landfill waste . It’s unlikely that commercial printing at scale will ever be considered ‘green’, in the true sense, but there are things you can do to minimise your impact. Enterprises can adopt eco-friendly policies like default duplex printing, paperless workflows, recycled paper usage, and energy-efficient printers to reduce their carbon footprint. And the best advice? If something doesn’t need to be printed, don’t print it. Not so fun fact: 20% of all printed documents are left sitting in the paper tray.
Enterprise printing challenge #8: Downtime and maintenance of large-scale print fleets
[body] Printer malfunctions and maintenance issues can massively disrupt business operations, especially if they all happen at once. So, what’s the secret? Don’t let them all happen at once. Implement proactive maintenance schedules with remote diagnostics and automated alerts to minimize downtime and flag any printers that are showing issues. That way you can put out spot fires, while keeping the larger network fully operational. The key is to get into a rolling maintenance schedule that prioritises high-volume machines.
Enterprise printing challenge #9: Complexity in print queue management for high-volume printing
Large enterprises often experience bottlenecks in print queues, leading to delays and inefficiencies. We see it all the time. The truth is that large organisations are just way too complicated to let users manage their own print queues and job routing by hand. You’re going to end up with queues (like, literal queues) at the MFD. But enterprise print solutions are here to help! Load balancing across multiple printers, prioritization rules, and automated rerouting of print jobs can streamline high-volume printing environments.
Enterprise printing challenge #10: Lack of IT print management experience
We get it, printing is sometimes seen as ‘ancient’ tech. Many IT teams actually lack specialized knowledge in managing enterprise print environments. And that’s okay. Outsourcing print management to a managed print services (MPS) provider, or using AI-driven monitoring tools, can alleviate a lot of that burden, and it’s pretty standard for enterprise level organisations. And even if you want to keep everything in-house, with the right print management platform, any IT professional can quickly get up to speed. And if you want to up your own knowledge, we have a whole suite of training videos and how-to guides to make life that little bit easier.
