Optimizing print infrastructure
Up to 90% of companies don’t track what they spend on print, according to Gartner research. And the businesses that do? They’re typically overspending by 20% to 30%. That’s the size of the opportunity sitting in front of every IT reseller customer who knows how to talk about managed print services (MPS).
Print has long been a transactional product category. But the shift to as-a-service models has changed that. MPS turns a one-time hardware sale into a recurring service contract backed by real customer savings, and it’s a practice that reseller customers can build today.
Here’s what we’ll cover: what managed print services actually include, the customer benefits that make the conversation easy, and how TD SYNNEX’s print program helps you launch or expand a managed print practice.
What managed print services actually include
At their core, managed print services are the proactive, ongoing management of an organization’s print devices, including printers, multifunction devices (MFDs) and supplies, with the goal of optimizing cost, uptime and usage. It’s not a service contract on a single brand. It’s a structured program covering the full print lifecycle from assessment to continuous improvement.
A typical engagement runs through four phases.
Assessment: Understanding the current environment
It starts with a thorough look at the customer’s existing print fleet: how many devices are deployed, how they’re being used, what they’re costing per page, and where the bottlenecks live. Your role is to gather usage data and surface the real spend, often the first time the customer has seen those numbers in one place.
Optimization: Right sizing the fleet
Once the data is in, the reseller recommends a leaner, more efficient fleet. That can mean consolidating underused devices, reassigning machines to better match workgroup needs, or replacing aging hardware that costs more in service calls than a new unit would cost outright.
Management: Monitoring and proactive support
Devices are remotely monitored for issues like low toner, paper jams or required maintenance. The reseller addresses problems before users even notice them. Supplies are auto-shipped and break-fix calls drop because most issues are caught before they break anything.
Ongoing reporting: Visibility and continuous improvement
Monthly or quarterly reports give customers visibility into print volumes, costs by department, color usage and waste. That data feeds the next round of optimization, so the program keeps getting tighter over time.
A data collection agent (DCA) is typically installed on the customer’s network to feed device data into a management portal, giving you and your customer real-time visibility into fleet health, usage and costs.
What separates this kind of program from a standard printer contract: an MPS engagement is vendor-agnostic, proactive and outcome-focused. A break-fix contract waits for things to go wrong. Managed print does the work to prevent things from going wrong in the first place.
The customer benefits that make MPS an easy conversation
When you understand what managed print services deliver from the end customer’s perspective, the sales conversation gets a lot simpler. Here’s what your customers walk away with when print management is on the table.
Cost reduction and predictable spend
Most customers don’t have visibility into what print actually costs them. A managed program creates that visibility first, then optimizes against it. The typical result is a 20% to 30% reduction in total print spend, driven by fleet consolidation, supply efficiency and waste reduction. Just as important, the unpredictable spend of break-fix repairs and emergency toner orders becomes a flat, contracted monthly fee.
Less burden on internal IT
According to IDC, IT departments spend roughly 15% of their time on printing-related issues, and up to half of all help desk tickets are printer-related. The right managed program pulls that workload off internal IT entirely. Your customer’s team gets to focus on projects that move the business forward instead of unjamming printers and resetting drivers.
Improved uptime and device performance
Proactive monitoring catches device issues before users notice them. Toner gets replaced before it runs out. Maintenance gets scheduled before parts fail. The result is fewer outages, fewer frustrated employees and a print environment that just works.
Print security and compliance support
Networked printers are one of the most overlooked attack surfaces in the modern office. According to % of organizations experienced a print-related security incident in the past year, up from 61% the year before. Outdated firmware, unencrypted print queues and unsecured output trays are real vulnerabilities. A managed program addresses them systematically, with secure release, firmware patching, encrypted job transmission and access controls. For customers in regulated industries, that’s not a nice-to-have. It’s a requirement.
Why MPS is a strong recurring revenue play for you
For reseller customers used to selling printers as one-time transactions, this is a real shift. Hardware margins on printers and MFDs continue to compress. Print management moves the revenue model from a single product sale to ongoing contracted services that compound over time.
A typical managed print services engagement includes monthly monitoring and management fees, automatic supplies fulfillment, service and repair contracts, and periodic fleet refresh planning. Each of those is a recurring revenue line that didn’t exist in the old transactional model.
The relationships are stickier, too. The assessment and optimization work creates real switching costs, and once you’re managing the print environment, you’re embedded as a trusted advisor instead of a commodity vendor. From there, the conversations naturally expand into adjacent areas like document workflow, security and cloud storage, opening up cross-sell paths that weren’t visible before.
Building a print practice with TD SYNNEX
You don’t have to build a managed print practice from scratch. TD SYNNEX’s Print solutions portfolio gives you broad vendor selection across leading print brands like HP, Xerox, Lexmark, and many others, plus supplies fulfillment and the services support that make managed offerings possible at scale.
The TD SYNNEX Endpoint Solutions team specializes in print and works with partners through every stage of the go-to-market process, from product selection to customer-facing assessment tools that help you scope managed engagements quickly. If you’re in Canada, TD SYNNEX Print provides the same depth of vendor access and program support tailored to your market.
Beyond the print portfolio, you can plug into broader enablement resources like Practice Builder and Channel Academy to formalize your print management practice and build repeatable go-to-market motions. And TD SYNNEX Managed Services provides additional white-labeled capabilities you can wrap around your print offering as it grows.
The bottom line: vendor breadth, services support, and dedicated print expertise are already in place. You don’t need to manage multiple distributor relationships or build proprietary print infrastructure optimization tools to launch a serious managed print practice.
FAQ: Managed print questions your customers will ask
How is MPS different from just buying printers and a service contract?
A standard service contract usually covers one brand and is reactive. It fixes things when they break. Managed print services are vendor-agnostic, proactive and ongoing. It includes assessment, optimization, monitoring and reporting across the whole fleet, all aimed at lowering total cost and improving uptime over time.
Is managed print only for large businesses?
Not at all. Print management scales down to small and mid-market businesses without much trouble. Any organization that depends on print for daily operations, especially in healthcare, legal, education or finance, benefits from the visibility and cost control regardless of company size.
What happens to our existing devices?
Engagements typically start with the existing fleet. The assessment phase determines what to keep, consolidate or replace, and changes happen over time as part of an optimization plan. Customers don’t have to replace everything upfront.
How does managed print pricing typically work?
Most engagements use a cost-per-page model or a flat monthly fee that bundles management, supplies and service into one predictable line item. End customers stop dealing with surprise repair invoices and toner orders and start budgeting for print as they’d budget for any other contracted service.
Turn print into a practice and a recurring revenue stream
Your customers are spending more on print than they realize, and the reseller customers who walk in with a managed print solution become indispensable, not just for print but as trusted technology advisors. Managed print services are well-defined and easy to explain. The customer benefits are easy to demonstrate. And TD SYNNEX’s print program gives you the platform to deliver it without overextending your team.
Position this as a smart, low-risk expansion of your existing services portfolio, and the rest tends to follow.
Ready to add managed print services to your portfolio? Explore TD SYNNEX Print solutions and connect with our team to learn how we can help you build a recurring revenue practice around print infrastructure optimization.
