Businesses are often faced with difficult, complex decisions. One of those is choosing between doing your printing in-house vs outsourcing printing.
Whether you think you’re saving money, time, or simply don’t want to ‘be a printer,’ let us show you why you should not be outsourcing your printing needs anymore.
If you’re looking for a new printer that offers you all the latest technology or just need to restock on printer paper and toner, check out the Impact store!
The Drawbacks of Outsourcing Printing
Outsourcing your business’ printing introduces a lot of variables into the process that can slow things down, increase costs, lower quality, and make printing a headache. Here are some of the biggest cons of outsourced printing for businesses:
- Less Quality Control: The quality of outsourced printing can be spotty due to the number of moving parts and potential error points in the process. All it takes is one miscommunication, corrupted file, or print mistake to create a bad batch, costing businesses more money and prolonging the time it takes to get your materials. Additionally, vetting a print shop can be a tedious process as no two are created the same and quality can vary wildly (something you won’t know until the material is in your hand).
- Slower Print Jobs: When outsourcing printing, businesses have to jump through the necessary hoops to make sure everyone is on the same page as to print volume, colors, materials, and timeline. This bogs down the overall process creating a lot of moving parts and introducing many places where errors can occur. Outsourced print also removes the ability to adapt quickly or produce quick jobs on demand.
- More Expensive: For businesses that print frequently and in high volumes, the costs of outsourcing can add up quickly from material costs, shipping, labor, and time.
Benefits of Printing In-House
On the other side of the coin, in-house printing brings with it a lot of benefits that improve different aspects of the printing process from lower costs to higher quality and flexibility. Here are some of the most impactful benefits of bringing printing in-house.
- Save Time on Print Jobs: Not only will businesses get the final product faster by removing the shipping element of outsourcing printing, but in-house printing also eliminates many of the process’ bottlenecks. Communication, shipping, design, and other tedious steps can be skipped by doing it all in-house rather than waiting on another organization to get it all done. Additionally, when you print internally, you become your print team’s only customer and will never be deprioritized.
- Increase Security: If you print sensitive documents like customer records, receipts, or financial reports, it presents a security risk to have those documents, reports, and materials printed and shipped away from your business. With in-house printing, all the data stays at home, no transferring of information or shipping of hard copies is required.
- Control Printing Processes: In-house printing gives businesses much more control over print materials, color matching, timelines, and costs because it’s all handled inside your business. You can test materials faster, perform more intense quality control, and ensure everything is done right every time without wasting time or resources.
- Reduce Cost and Waste: The quality control capabilities of in-house printing also helps businesses avoid wasting materials by printing 1,000 copies of the wrong color or something full of typos. This saves paper both literally and in your budget.
Bringing Production Print In-House
Production print is another form of printing that most businesses are unaware can be brought in-house to the great benefit of those businesses. Modern production print machines are easier to understand, simpler to use, and have the capabilities to match specific colors, cut to necessary dimensions, and print on a variety of materials.
The ability to print professional-quality materials on demand is a massive boon for businesses that rely on labels, banners, business cards, marketing materials, sales collateral, and more when it’s needed without the hassles that come with outsourcing printing.
Benefits of an MSP for Printing In-House
To get the most out of your in-house production print machines, or to help you make equipment selections, it’s beneficial to partner with a managed service provider (MSP). MSPs can provide the expertise, technology, processes, and support needed to build and maintain an effective production printer fleet.
An MSP partner gives you:
- Access to Continued Remote and On-Site Support: The relationship doesn’t end when the equipment is installed. For the length of the contract, our technicians are standing by, waiting to help fix problems, optimize processes, and update your machines.
- A Selection of Hand-Picked Machines: MSPs offer you a selection of hand-picked, world-class production print machines to fill out your fleet based on your business’ needs and goals.
- Employee Training: We won’t leave you high and dry. Our experts take the time to train your team how to use the new in-house production print machines so you can effectively and efficiently use them every day.
- Consistent Evaluations and Guidance: Over the course of our partnership, our specialists will consistently provide guidance and evaluations to ensure your fleet of printing machines is always helping you meet your goals.
Why In-House Quality Control Matters
In-house printing significantly enhances quality control by allowing businesses to own and manage every step of the printing process.
With direct oversight, companies can ensure that each aspect of the printing—from design to final output—meets their exact standards. Real-time monitoring and adjustments enable precise control over color accuracy, alignment, and print resolution, leading to consistently high-quality results.
This hands-on approach minimizes the risk of errors and discrepancies that can arise with outsourced printing, where communication gaps and varying quality standards may compromise the final product. Aspects like immediate inspection and correction capabilities also further reduce waste and ensure that only the best quality products are produced and delivered.
Moreover, in-house printing provides greater flexibility and responsiveness, enabling businesses to quickly adapt to changes or produce custom materials on short notice. This agility is particularly advantageous for meeting tight deadlines or accommodating specific client needs.
Plus, by managing the entire printing process internally, companies can protect sensitive information and maintain confidentiality, which is especially important for projects involving proprietary data or confidential marketing strategies.
All-in-all, owning the quality control process through in-house printing leads to superior printed materials, enhanced efficiency, and better alignment with the company's quality standards and goals.
Wrapping Up on In-House vs Outsourcing Printing Services
For businesses who want to bring printing in-house to lower costs, improve quality, and become more flexible with print timelines, it can seem like a big task to find the right machines, train employees, order supplies, and then maintain those machines over time to ensure downtime isn’t an issue in the future.
Managed Print Services and Production Print from Impact alleviate these issues by providing businesses with the resources they need to manage all of these aspects of print by having on-call specialists available to monitor print habits for optimized performance, ordering of supplies, repairs and maintenance, and team training.
If your office equipment is in need of an upgrade, take a few minutes to browse the Impact store’s collection of high-quality printers and copiers.
