How U.S. Bank Modernized Print Infrastructure in the Cloud

For many enterprises, print infrastructure evolves slowly over time. Devices are added as organizations grow, different vendors support different locations, and workflows develop around legacy systems.

Eventually, that patchwork approach starts to create friction for IT.

U.S. Bank found itself in a similar position. With roughly 70,000 employees and approximately 2,000 branches, the organization needed a more cohesive approach to managing print across its environment.

The timing aligned with a broader shift in technology strategy.

“Sometime around 2020, our bank adopted a cloud-first strategy,” said Chris Green, Assistant Vice President at U.S. Bank. “We were looking at how to modernize across the board.”

Print became part of that modernization effort.

The Challenges of a Legacy Print Environment

Like many large organizations, U.S. Bank’s print environment had grown organically. Over time that created several challenges:

• Multiple print service providers
• Printer fleet sprawl across locations
• Devices with widely varying ages and capabilities
• Legacy print servers increasing infrastructure complexity
• Limited visibility into print usage

“We wanted to get to a single management service provider,” Green explained. “We had multiple at the time. We also wanted to right-size our fleet because we had sprawl over time.”

Some devices had been running far longer than intended.

“We had printers at the time that were more than 10 years old,” Green said. “We wanted to get them into a true four-year lifecycle.”

The team also wanted to improve consistency for employees.

“We had printers of various makes and models, so we wanted to create a single experience with printing and using those devices.”

Moving Print to the Cloud

As U.S. Bank evaluated options, cloud-based print management stood out as a way to simplify infrastructure while aligning with the company’s broader cloud strategy.

The organization also wanted to modernize its printing workflow.

“We wanted to establish a pull print solution to modernize the way we were printing at the bank and increase our security,” Green said. “We also wanted to reduce our IT footprint and retire some of our legacy on-prem servers.”

Another goal was reducing the operational burden on support teams.

“We wanted to reduce calls to our service desk,” Green explained.

Cloud print infrastructure offered a way to address all of these issues at once. By centralizing management and reducing reliance on on-prem systems, the bank could simplify operations while strengthening control over sensitive data.

Early Results

The modernization initiative quickly delivered measurable results.

“With our implementation we reduced our printer fleet by 40 percent,” Green said. “We’ve enhanced our security, and in the first year we reduced printing by six million pages.”

The impact continued to grow over time.

“Last year it was 18 million pages that we saved year over year,” Green said.

Lower print volumes translated into lower costs across the board, from paper and toner to service and maintenance.

“It’s really nice to be able to say we’re seeing real value here,” Green added. “Whether it’s click charges, page charges, the cost of paper and toner, that’s what leadership likes to see.”

Rolling Out a New Print Environment at Scale

Deploying a new print environment across thousands of locations required careful planning.

U.S. Bank rolled out the new system across roughly 2,300 sites over 18 months.

“In our case, it worked well to concentrate our rollout in areas where we had the most printers,” Green said. “That allowed us to tackle most of our fleet in the first six months.”

After addressing the largest locations, the team moved to smaller sites.

“The last 12 months just kind of kept going down in size,” Green explained.

The approach minimized disruption while allowing the team to learn and adjust along the way.

Change Management and the Employee Experience

For employees, the biggest change was moving from traditional printing to pull printing, where users badge in at a printer to release their jobs.

That required thoughtful communication.

“We made a big change here at the bank,” Green said. “We went from some legacy rudimentary printing to pull print where people were badging in and releasing their print jobs.”

As expected, adoption took time.

“It took quite a bit of communication and time to work with our end users on a very large change,” Green said.

The team created training materials, internal communications, and support resources to help employees adjust.

Over time, many users began to appreciate the new flexibility.

“With pull print, you can print and walk to any printer in the building and release your job there,” Green explained. “That was really appealing to certain segments of our business.”

Learning and Adapting After Deployment

One important lesson from the rollout was that not every workflow fits a single printing model.

The organization initially deployed pull printing broadly. Later it leveraged direct print capabilities that were also part of the cloud platform for teams that needed a more traditional workflow.

“Even after we fully transitioned to pull print, we added a feature called direct print to allow push printing again for groups that need that,” Green said.

That flexibility allowed the bank to support different use cases across departments.

“It’s kind of a continual learning experience,” Green said. “We’re just getting better as we go.”

Why Print Modernization Matters for Security

For a financial institution, print is not just about productivity. It is also about protecting sensitive information.

“Printing is often overlooked, but it’s an important part of distributing information,” Green said.

That means security has to be considered throughout the process.

“Whether it’s encrypting that information at rest or in transit, getting it securely to the printer, or controlling what happens after it prints, those are all things you have to think about.”

The modernization effort also improved visibility.

“We have much better metrics on what our individual users are doing on a daily basis than we had before,” Green said. “That’s been another positive change from a risk and audit perspective.”

Advice for IT Leaders

Organizations considering print modernization often do not know where to start.

Green recommends broadening the conversation early.

“If you’re not exposed to different manufacturers and products in the printing space, you might get locked into one certain style,” he said. “Going through an RFP process and hearing from different vendors was really helpful.”

He also recommends learning from peers.

“If there are peer groups you can involve yourself in, that’s incredibly valuable,” Green said. “We’ve seen the impact of that here, talking with other organizations about what they’re doing.”

Finally, he emphasized the importance of preparation.

“Making a switch like this isn’t just something within your IT stack,” Green said. “You should work with security teams, risk teams, procurement, and really analyze the costs, use cases, and technical implications before making a decision.”

The Bigger Picture

U.S. Bank’s print modernization initiative shows how a service overlooked by many organizations plays an important role in broader technology transformation.

By moving print infrastructure to the cloud, the bank simplified operations, improved security, and gained better visibility into how printing happens across the enterprise.

At the same time, the project reinforced an important reality. Modernizing print is not only about infrastructure. It is about aligning technology, workflows, and people around a more efficient way of working.

As Green put it, the work is ongoing.

“Our focus now is continuing to mature the environment we’re in and just seeing how we can print less as an organization and drive down costs.”