Sebastian McNamee, Business Development Manager for Workspace at Canon South Africa.
For many organisations, printers and scanners are seen as grudge purchases. However, Canon’s new Print in City print share solution offers businesses the opportunity to not just cover the cost of devices but possibly make a profit on them.
This is according to Sebastian McNamee, Business Development Manager for Workspace at Canon South Africa, who says Print in City allows organisations to generate revenue and improve customer service using their existing Canon MFPs.
McNamee says: “The Print in City public print, scan and copy service was developed to meet the public need for more accessible printing services and allow device owners the opportunity to generate revenue from their existing MFPs. The service is ideal for organisations like libraries and universities, who have printers the public want to use, but who do not want to handle payments and admin associated with printing. It is also ideal for coffee shops and gyms where many people work remotely, or even for public services and residential estates, where there may be a need for printing.
“In the case of a university, students could be up late studying and finishing assignments, but the library or normal print stores are closed. With Print in City, they could simply walk to one of the machines on the campus and go release their job. They don’t have to buy any credits over the counter or ask the university to load the print job.”
He notes: “In theory, universities have the opportunity to generate additional revenue as it’s a good value add for students.”
McNamee believes residential estates could also benefit: “In large estates with clubhouses and lifestyle areas, printing services could offer real value for residents who work from home or who have children working on projects.”
Print in City reduces the need for administrative involvement. As a cloud-based service, Print in City uses SHA-256 with RSA encryption, and is securely hosted on Microsoft Azure servers across Europe. It communicates directly with Print in City enabled MFDs, without needing on-premises servers, release stations or third-party tablets. Organisations simply choose how many devices to make available and then apply the monthly subscription costs. All revenues are securely transmitted to a nominated bank account with full job reconciliation every month.
For members of the public, Print in City eliminates the need to wait in queues. The secure, reliable print service is designed for ease of use and is completely self-service. End-users simply download the app and register or sign on as a guest, select the files they want to print from a laptop or mobile device, decide where they want to print, and release the print job when they arrive at the printer. Fees are automatically deducted from their e-wallet.
The system deletes jobs after printing them out, and deletes any documents not printed in 48 hours.
“To become a Print in City partner, businesses can contact their Canon partners for more information,” McNamee concludes.