The hidden cost of printer deployments at scale

As organizations grow, move toward hybrid work, and spread across locations; printer deployment stops being a small operational task. It turns into a persistent source of friction and costly in ways that are easy to overlook. 41% of organizations cite the high cost of maintaining legacy systems as a primary problem, cited by IDC in their studies.  

How printer deployments are still managed today

In many environments, printer deployment still relies on familiar methods: group policies, manual installations, and custom scripts. These approaches are widely used and well understood. They also share the same limitations. They were never designed to scale gracefully.

Group policies require careful planning and frequent updates. Scripts tend to solve one problem at a time, then slowly fall apart as operating systems change or environments evolve. Manual installs remain the fallback option, often requiring someone to step in remotely or be physically present.  

All this works until it doesn’t. And when it stops working, the effort needed to keep things running increases disproportionately.

Scale changes the nature of the problem

Once an organization operates across multiple buildings, campuses, or countries, printer deployment becomes less predictable. Users move between locations. Roles change. Devices travel. Personal laptops and smartphones enter corporate environments through BYOD policies.

Each change introduces another exception. Another rule. Another workaround. 

A new employee joins and ends up with the wrong printer access. A department relocates, and half the queues no longer make sense. A remote worker needs printing access, but security constraints complicate the setup. An executive travels and discovers that confidential documents are printed on shared devices. 

None of these scenarios are unusual. They are everyday realities in modern organizations.

The operational burden on IT teams

IT managers carry most of this burden. IT teams have to maintain scripts that require constant attention. They rebuild policies for each new location. They respond to tickets that are simple but repetitive.

Many fixes still require on-site work. Someone must intervene manually to correct what is essentially a deployment issue. Over time, this consumes hours that could be spent on projects with greater impact.

Printer deployment becomes a known weak point. Not because teams are failing, but because the tools and models they rely on are no longer aligned with how organizations actually work.

The financial impact adds up quietly

From a financial perspective, the cost of inefficient printer deployment rarely shows up clearly. It appears in IT labor, support overhead, delayed office launches, and extended project timelines. 

Every new office requires additional effort. Every change introduces risk. Every manual step increases the likelihood of error.

Individually, these costs may seem manageable. Over time, they compound. Especially in large or distributed organizations, printer deployment becomes a silent drain on operational efficiency. 

Security and privacy are harder to control than they should be

For leadership teams, the most concerning risks are often the least visible. 

Shared queues can sometimes result in the wrong printer at the wrong location. Misconfigurations can send sensitive documents to the wrong device. Personal devices blur the line between trusted corporate networks and unmanaged environments.

Executives face a unique challenge. They work across locations and handle sensitive information that cannot afford mistakes. Yet most deployment approaches treat them like any other user, relying on conventions rather than guarantees.

When something goes wrong, the impact extends beyond inconvenience. It affects trust, compliance, and reputation.

BYOD and hybrid work expose the gaps

BYOD environments, especially universities, campuses, and large enterprises, highlight these issues even more clearly. Thousands of users. Hundreds of printers. Minimal tolerance for friction.

Users expect to install and print quickly. IT teams must ensure security, separation, and consistency. The result is often a patchwork of installers, instructions, and exceptions that only works because someone is constantly maintaining it.

Hybrid work adds another layer. Printing is no longer tied to a single network or building. Access needs to follow users, while control must remain centralized. 

48% of customers report that a top challenge is employees being unable to print effectively at home mentions IDC. 

Why these pain points persist?

These problems persist not because of a lack of effort, but because printer deployment is still treated as a one-time setup task.

Modern organizations need something different. A model that adapts to users, roles, and locations. One that reduces manual intervention rather than shifting it around.

Without that shift, IT teams are left optimizing around limitations. They can make things faster or safer, but not fundamentally simpler. 

A change is on the horizon 

Across IT infrastructure, there is a clear move toward automation and standardization. Print management is beginning to follow that same direction. 

At MyQ, we have spent quite some time working with organizations facing these exact challenges. Global enterprises. Large campuses. Hybrid environments where traditional deployment models no longer hold up. 

What we are preparing addresses these pain points at their core. Not by adding complexity, but by removing much of what makes printer deployment fragile today. 

It is designed to reduce deployment time, lower operational overhead, and strengthen security without increasing friction. And it reflects how modern organizations actually operate. 

More details will follow soon.

For now, it is enough to say this: the problems described here are real, widespread, and long overdue for a better answer. And that solution is closer than you might expect.