According to current information, the automotive industry has taken a hit due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. With auto sales down 50% due to shelter-in-place orders or monetary restrictions due to job loss or furlough, auto franchises are searching for ways to stay solvent.
Dealers are rising to the challenge, managing employee wellness and putting new processes in place to enable auto sales under social distancing guidelines. Automakers have jumped in to help, offering 0% financing offers and facilitating the move to online car buying to spark sales.
Now, as the industry looks toward the “new normal” in terms of brick-and-mortar operations, the automotive industry is beginning to see a slow increase in activity as the U.S. economy begins to recover.
For dealers, this is the perfect time to enact group-wide practices to support a strong post-crisis reemergence.
One simple process large dealer groups can leverage to improve bottom line health is to outsource management of their printer fleet. Managed print services enable dealer groups to save controller staff time, reduce dollars tied up in inventory, and recover much-needed basis points.
This seemingly small change can make an enormous difference to your bottom-line costs — and your ability to drive revenue — particularly as sales begin to rebound.
Key Difficulties with Traditional Printer Fleet Management
While printer fleets differ in size and technology from dealer to dealer, they have many issues in common.
These issues center around a flawed “break-fix” model that is notoriously cost-inefficient and often results in significant downtime that has profound effects on productivity and revenue.
Other concerns with traditional printer fleet management systems include:
- Staff time to manage toner, parts, repairs, and maintenance
- Susceptibility to errors as inventory gets reordered, distributed, and charged to various cost centers.
- Miscalculated inventory can result in stock-outs that stop production or overstocking that ties up capital
- Lack of maintenance or typical glitches can cause mission-critical printers to go down without warning, creating sales and service problems for the customer.
If your organization is still maintaining and supplying printers in traditional ways, you may be creating complications in the areas of productivity or capital expenditures.
Benefits of Improving Printer Fleet Operations to Best Practices
There are significant cost and productivity benefits to electing a managed print system. Chief among them are the following:
- Managed print frees controller staff time for brighter work and month-end closings
- It frees up operating dollars
- It prevents downtime on mission-critical devices, improving customer service
- It saves 20% to 30% over traditional fleet management practices
- It’s excellent for some solid basis points, better operations, and happier staff and customers
If you find that all your dealers’ printers are not serviced and sourced in the same way and they aren’t being monitored, maintained, and serviced centrally, you have room for improvement through an expert managed print services provider.
Get A Much-Needed Competitive Edge with PointManagement’s Managed Print Services
Your dealer group can see a jump in efficiency, productivity, and cost savings with a switch from traditional print management to With PointManagement Managed Print Services.
Our team of experts will ensure:
- All printers, at all dealers, are serviced and sourced the same way for continuity and efficiency
- All printers are monitored centrally with troubleshooting alerts
- Printer supplies are sourced automatically, with Just In Time delivery to free up capital and prevent stock-outs
- When a toner cartridge arrives, it addressed to the correct printer to avoid costly misuse
- You save 20-30% on toner through high-performing, low-cost, OEM-complaint remanufactured toner
Our simple-to-install innovative data agent manager will effectively count pages, set up service alerts, and manage toner replacement automatically at the level you pre-set.
Our strategic PointMan Secure TM Managed Print Services will help your dealers enable secure, policy-compliant printing, eliminate mission-critical printer downtime, track and allocate expenses more effectively, and save up to 30% over OEM toner for hard-and-fast cost savings.
And our team of industry professionals will assess the status of your fleet to ensure you have the right infrastructure for your needs.
This simple, easy-to-deploy change will be virtually effortless for your staff to implement, yet it will result in the kind of significant cost and productivity changes that are often associated with a competitive advantage.
In a post-pandemic environment, this kind of change is enough to ignite a strong — and lasting — improvement in revenue.
Ready to see how PointManagement’s PointMan Secure TM Managed Print Services can help keep your dealer group head-and-shoulders above their competition? Contact a PointManagement consultant now and get started today!
