Restaurants are in a new reality with COVID-19. Many of them took a big hit financially with COVID-19 and the accompanying shutdowns and restrictions. And as restaurateurs began taking the first tentative steps toward welcoming customers back, there are fundamental changes in how they operate.
These days, waiters wear masks and gloves. Often, menus are disposable and printed on paper. It’s all done this way to avoid having many people touch the same surfaces. And for many restaurant owners, producing these disposable menus can be done simply with a computer and a printer.
One item that ought to be on the menu – not literally, of course – is MPS, or Managed Print Services.
In many cases, restaurants were forced to pivot quickly, and the setup for generating these disposal menus was done hastily as COVID descended upon us. It can be as simple as a computer and a big box printer. For restaurant owners who frequently change these menus and print or copy new ones daily, it may seem that the arrangement they have is working well.
The system may get the job done. But it is unlikely that the system is nearly as efficient as it can be. If it seems that business will continue in its present format for the foreseeable future, it’s worth the restaurant owner’s time to take a harder look at the way they are creating their documents.
None of us know how long the COVID restrictions will last. But, in the case of restaurant owners – or anyone else who generates documents on a daily basis using an inexpensive big box printer – the per-page cost to generate these documents can be 7 or 8 cents, and possibly even more.
A Managed Print Services (MPS) program can help businesses reduce their per-page cost, closer to 2 or 3 cents per page. In simplest terms, a MPS program will audit a business’s system of generating documents and recommends a system that will lower the cost per page of generating these menus or other documents.
For the restaurant owner, the solution may be as simple as investing in a more efficient Multi Function Printer (MFP) that will cost more at initial point of purchase but which can generate documents at a much lower per-page cost. Most of the big box printers are very attractively priced – often under $200 – but replacing the cartridges soon becomes a large and regular expense.
For larger businesses, whether it’s a chain of restaurants or some other industry, a full MPS program can result in savings of between 10% and 15% of the cost of generating documents. Most businesses spend approximately 3% of their annual sales on the generation of documents, so it is worth an assessment to see where costs can be saved.
Learn more by emailing us at info@pulsetechnology.com
