Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) executives are urging the channel to utilize the company’s Green IT Action Plan for Printing and Imaging and its Carbon Footprint Calculator, as part of the company’s Eco Solutions Program, to help partners win more business in today’s challenging economic climate.
Maggie Davis, the worldwide environmental lead for HP, said today, the primary driver for businesses wanting to implement green IT solutions is because they want to reduce their energy expenses.
Jean-Paul Desmarais, HP Canada’s enterprise marketing manager, said the goal behind the company’s Green IT Action Plan for Printing and Imaging, which can be found through the HP Web site, is to provide businesses with a step-by-step guide to help them follow through with and execute on a green IT solution strategy.
“We’re helping our customers bring the idea of green IT to life,” Desmarais said. “This step-by-step guide has embedded templates and clickable links in it that will also open up other resources to help them along this path.”
The guide includes questions to help businesses who are going down the green path, from start to finish.
“If a company’s really serious about green IT and they want to create a plan, they first need to assess their environment to really understand things because if they don’t know what their environment looks like today, how can they plan for tomorrow?,” Davis said. “From there, companies can look for ways to reduce their energy, while saving on paper resources.”
To help companies get started, Desmarais says there are four basic steps to devising and executing on a green IT action plan. They include, assessing and understanding where the company is today, for instance, in terms of how much paper is used, looking at where in the organization the biggest changes and opportunities for the solutions lie, managing these changes, and lastly, measuring and revising the plan when necessary.
“The opportunity for the channel is to really be the consults to the customers because customers, large and small and across all vertical markets need help in this area,” Davis explained.
Some of the questions in HP’s Green IT Action Plan for Printing and Imaging include, “Are different devices used for printing, faxing, copying and scanning?, Do devices remain on at night and on weekends? Who will need to give approvals for changes?, What are your enterprise’s per-page print costs, including supplies and support?,” and many more.
Another tip for partners is to ensure end-users know how to properly dispose of and recycle products once they reach end-of-life, Davis said.
“If it’s not easy for the end-user (to recycle or dispose of products), it will be more difficult to get end-user adoption,” Davis added. “Partners can also use tools like our Carbon Footprint Calculator to help customers create a green IT solution plan that they can execute on and measure against.”
Partners can help businesses with their green IT strategies by helping them implement hardware solutions such as multi-function printers (MFPs), and educating them on the importance of things like digitizing workflows, Davis and Desmarais added.
