| | November 20179CIOReviewthat work great at retail and print communication programs for health care where different states have different rules about what class of mail can be used to send out a printed membership card.Do consider using a printer as your MPS partner. The old truism "nobody can buy printing like a printer is, well, true. The fact is, they have developed the systems and technology to manage an endless list of little details, each of which is expensive or worse if wrong. Actually, they started decades ago load balancing inside an industry with expensive fixed assets and demand that came in peaks and valleys. The old fox in the hen house argument against using a key print supplier as your managed print services vendor has given way to modern business practices first pioneered by IBM as they moved into services while still selling hardware. The same systems and technology stack that can deliver your needs can also provide for the transparency and market confirmation that costs in fact continue to go down.Another reason for CIO involvement in MPS is their experience in thinking about system costs or total costs rather than just quoted price costs. A good example can be found in the tradeoffs to be found in Print on Demand vs. Traditional Print Technologies. It is beyond the scope of this article but this trade off discussion will bring you into a related issue, distribute (electronically) and print vs. print and distribute (physically). Simply put, the issues and tradeoffs are complex and evolving. The reality is that print technology is a complex and evolving space. Print on demand technology is reducing costs and speeding delivery times but there are significant tradeoffs with toner, ink jet and liquid ink systems all providing different levels of quality, cost and toughness. And, of course, web based front end ordering systems are necessary to gain the most advantage but a CIO needs a MPS partner who understands single sign on, the differences between available variable print engines and network security. Managing this on-going innovation is the key to reduced costs and improved service levels, and therefore, the CIO chair is a good place from which this effort is directed. Managing this on-going innovation is the key to reduced costs and improved service levels
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