My Personal Finance Blog

In today’s busy times, almost every single business demands huge resources. Managed print services are essential in order to keep track of the volumes of resources being used across departments, from endless piles of print outs and copies to phones and other systems. Accountability and control is vital to ensure that resources are monitored and not wasted, which means that effective solutions are required to accurately keep track of the endless output generated by even the smallest of business, let alone the massive conglomerates that produce massive volumes of waste each year.

Who exactly needs managed print services however, and is this required for all business or only large offices with a large output of resources? The following industries stand to gain the most benefit from these types of services, and are therefore are more likely to require services such as these:

Companies dealing with cost-recovery, legal issues and finance management

Accountability is important in any business, but in the case of accounting, legal, debt and finance companies, print audits and other similar services play a vital role in transparency. Dealing with potentially delicate matters on a daily basis, and needing to ensure absolute accuracy in all reporting is a huge part of this sort of industry, and is therefore vital to ensure that companies adhere to the strict standards that are required from them.

Educational facilities and tertiary institutions

Among the most benefited companies using managed print services, educational institutions, from large universities to small colleges, are able to ensure efficient and accurate student billing through management charge-back functions offered by most print auditing solutions. This makes admin tasks much easier for educational facilitators and offices, simplifying the process in many ways.

Commercial agencies of all sizes

Agencies dealing with plenty of paperwork and phone calls, not to mention computer-reliant agencies who do a great deal of printing, such as design firms, benefit hugely from managed print services, as these allow them to track and audit phone calls and print outs made across the agency, helping to keep costs down and account for the large volumes of resources generated.

Government and multi-national corporations

Large corporations such as telecoms providers and state-subsidised companies are one of the most crucial industries when it comes to audits and other managed services. Accounting for such huge volumes of paper and phone calls can be a daunting challenge without accurate reporting and management, which is why solutions such auditing are so useful. Managers are able to keep track of the resources used by the company across the board, by department and as a whole, keeping costs down and minimising waste – a bonus for budgets as well as the environment, as this ensures less impact on the environment and promotes sustainable use of resources.

As for why any company would choose to consider print services, one of the key benefits that this service provides is effective management of resources, saving huge costs and ensuring better accuracy and quality overall. For any company wanting to promote an accountable and highly sustainable practice, managed print solutions are the way forward for business across the world.

The game played by politicians is to take an idea from their own agenda and then frame it in a way that sells it to the other side. When the politicians meet in the middle, bipartisan solutions to problems emerge. This reflects the fact there is no monopoly on good ideas, only simple good solutions to difficult problems. In the healthcare debate, one of the solutions proposed by the GOP was to allow people to buy their insurance across state lines. This sounds a good idea. As the law stands, every state regulates the sale of insurance within its own borders. This limits the size of the market. If insurers had to compete with each other on a regional or national level, the premium rates would fall and every citizen would get a better deal. Well, let’s look a little more closely at how it would actually work.

At present, every state has a Department of Insurance to regulate the insurance companies licensed to sell policies. This is a reasonably effective system for consumer protection. But if regional or national insurers could sell policies into many states, it would break the regulatory system. It would no longer be local supervision of local companies. Insurers would decide where to establish and would, of course, choose the states which had the weakest consumer protection regulations, i.e. where they could make the most profit. Think banks and finance companies. These companies broke the US economy and produced the recession because their sales of subprime mortgages and associated derivatives were unregulated. Now apply the same thing to interstate insurance. As a final thought on this issue, remember all US states have different laws and one state cannot enforce another’s laws. That is sovereignty for you. So the state where an insurer is based cannot protect consumers under another state’s laws.

Secondly, opening the market across state lines allows insurers to cherry pick the best people to insure. Without regulations to limit the right to discriminate against people for pre-existing conditions and to increase premiums as people get older and fall ill more often, insurers will just take their profit from all the healthy people and forget about the rest. Thus, instead of increasing consumer choice, it would have the reverse effect. Most insurance companies would close their branches in individual states. Those that remained would keep all the aging and less healthy people. As their claims rise, the companies will make a loss and close. Without a law to mandate regional or national companies to offer some health coverage, it is likely the number of uninsured people would rise.

When you add all this up, it is a good thing the GOP’s proposal was rejected. Health insurance plans are complicated enough without having to change a whole mass of federal and state laws to allow interstate sales. This is not to say that consumers might benefit if there was more competition in the insurance market generally. With a real free market, properly regulated, consumers would get a better deal both in the terms of coverage and in the premium rates they pay. As it is, you must get multiple health insurance quotes. Anticipating their profits will take a hit following this reform, insurers have been raising their premium rates. You must shop around to find the most affordable policy.

During the boom years, all you had to worry about was the color to paint your home. Everything else was just great as house values kept on going up, releasing ever more housing equity as collateral for your loans. Now we have a recession and a wave of foreclosures has been sweeping across the land. Friends and neighbors have suddenly disappeared and their empty homes now stand out like bad teeth along streets that have forgotten how to smile. Needless to say, all these empty homes have no buyers and the resale value of all property has been falling over the last eighteen months. To complete the picture of the perfect economic storm, unemployment has pushed up above 10% in some areas. With this number of people out of work, there’s little chance of any significant pick up in the housing market over the next months. Indeed, you may be feeling the pressure of keeping your own head above the water. Too often people are discovering that the loans they acquired in the good years have terms raising the interest rates now. At a time when money is tight, this is unwelcome news.

The answer is negotiating a loan modification. This should be easy. You call up the loan company, explain your problems, show how much you can afford, agree to extend the term of the loan, and reduce the monthly instalments. Except you suddenly discover you no longer know who owns the mortgage. All these clever banks and finance companies sliced and diced all the loans into securitized bonds. The debts were all sold on and funding out who the owners are now can a real problem. But let’s assume you are lucky. That the original lender still owns the debt or you can find someone to talk to who works for the new owner. What exactly do you want? There are two options. The first changes the interest rates applied. Many people have been caught out by variable rates that have increased. To survive, you need to replace this balloon rate with a low fixed rate. The second option is hopefully added on to the first. You need to add years to the term of the mortgage. If you repay the same amount over twenty years instead of ten, your instalments are suddenly affordable again. Yes, you will pay slightly more interest over the additional ten years. But this will be a small price to pay to save your home.

At this point you discover that the person listening is not that sympathetic and sees no reason why the owner of the mortgage should now make less profit. Telling this person about family emergencies and health issues cuts no ice. You also discover the much-publicized Home Affordable Modification Program introduced by the Obama Administration is actually not that helpful. So what does work? The answer is either you are persistent or you get a specialist to help you. But be warned. There are a small army of crooks and con artists out there pretending to be home loan modification specialists. Never employ someone to help unless you have proof they offer real services. Always remember one truth. In the end, the lender makes more money if you stay in your home and pay something. If there is a foreclosure, everyone loses.