Overcoming the IT & Print ‘Pain points’ in the charities sector

03 Mar Overcoming the IT & Print ‘Pain points’ in the charities sector

The 5 key points for charities facing Print and IT issues.

Having worked with many charities over the years, Newman has gained a great deal of understanding and insight into some of the issues that charitable organisations face in terms of print and IT. These issues include (but are not limited to) the following 5 issues:

1. Security
2. Outdated IT equipment and/or systems
3. Predictability
4. Reliability
5. Charity concessions

Expanding on these 5 key points;

Security – ensuring (often sensitive ) data is protected

We understand that charities are often dealing with vulnerable people and that information held may be very personal (e.g. abuse, mental health, etc.) Some areas that we can assist organisations with are:

• GDPR compliance which covers regulations around how data is stored and handled which can be a minefield for some organisations.
• Some copiers keep data on the hard drive. You can prevent data leakage or loss by implementing data security kits across your network.
• If you need to apply for funding, having robust security measures in place can definitely be of benefit.

Outdated IT equipment or systems

• It is not uncommon for a charity to have donated equipment which can be coming towards the end of its life and may encounter issues such as reduced print quality and slow performance.
• Often IT support is given  ‘free’ of charge which can make it hard to complain about poor service levels for fear of upsetting the kind service provider.
• Free/cheap systems can be complicated, difficult to use and slow, therefore giving a poor user experience.
• With a reliable and up to date  IT system remote workers can securely access the system from any location.

Predictability of costs to help with budgeting and cash flow

• Charities benefit from predictable costs which are attainable with all-inclusive contracts.
• Charities often have cheap printers but it is the cost and time of sourcing consumables such as toners and inks, getting machines fixed/replaced and so on which can lead to frustration, wasted time, resources and variable costs.
• If you choose to lease equipment, repayments are set for the length of the agreement and don’t vary so this can be a good option for charities

Reliability of both equipment and service provided

• If there isn’t a managed print service in place, often we see poor quality print is just ‘accepted’ to avoid additional cost.
• ‘Free’ support makes it very difficult to escalate problems or complain about response times
• Often users are volunteers who may not always be the most technical.  Equipment needs to be simple and easy to use.
• Charity concessions – many concessions can be given to charities.  However, knowing what is possible can be tricky to uncover.

This is where Newman can assist with discovering where cost savings can be made across the organisations’ IT and Print functions. In order to make things run more efficiently, we provide a single point of contact for support and can implement a robust soluton to minimise downtime..