Confidence in a managed print solution

New College Durham achieved reduced printing costs and freed up vital IT resources with the help of a managed print solution from IT provider XMA.

As many colleges face ever stricter budget restrictions, the ability to predict printing costs can be a huge advantage. With more than five million pages printed at New College Durham each year, reducing the cost of their printing solution was certainly one of the challenges the organisation was keen to meet.

According to the college’s ICT assistant director Alan Race, print and copying costs were spiralling out of control and the uncertainty about the costs of maintaining the print service was making it difficult for his department to budget effectively. Alan was keen to find ways to reduce the college’s expenditure on its printing solution.

He says: “We had been suffering from printer unreliability and rising costs for some time when we moved to new buildings. It seemed the perfect time to reassess whether we were really providing the most effective solution to our 17,000 students – but in the most efficient way to us.

“After investigating, we decided a drastic change of approach was needed.”

To address this issue, New College Durham asked staff from XMA’s print solutions team to offer alternative options. One way forward highlighted during consultation was for the IT provider to deliver a fully managed print solution.

IT pain removed

“For us, it was the chance to get a major IT pain removed,” explains Alan. “XMA agreed to install about 140 Kyocera printers all on a managed service to standardise our print solution.

“It means we pay a single cost per page that includes all consumables, servicing and maintenance costs. We know that we have the very latest technology for our students and there are no surprises about how much we have to pay – which provides a real bonus for our budgeting.”

Cost efficiency guaranteed

It is the cost benefits that are, perhaps, the most attractive aspect of a managed solution. After a comprehensive print audit, XMA installed the printers in strategic locations around the college and agreed a four-hour response time for any technical issues. It means Alan and his team know, if any problems occur, not only are they covered but they do not have to find money to pay unexpected bills.

“Our budgets have increasingly got tighter and tighter so the IT department is always at full stretch,” say Alan. “This helps us plan a more efficient way of operating with totally transparent costs.”

All the charges, including installation and delivery, are worked out over a three year contract which means the cost is spread into regular, manageable payments each month.

“It’s a total cost of ownership solution that gives me confidence I know exactly what to expect and when,” says Alan.

The release of resources

An additional, but no less important, result of the new solution was that New College Durham no longer had to worry about its own staff constantly firefighting problems with printers. Instead, they were now freed up to concentrate on more important – and interesting – tasks.

Alan says: “Before XMA delivered this solution my staff constantly had to repair printers or sort out the students’ issues with them. This solution has given them back a lot of time to spend on other, more pressing concerns.

“It means they have the opportunity to be proactive and seek new ways to improve the IT facilities we pride ourselves on offering at New College Durham.”

Confidence in the right partner

According to Alan, New College Durham chose to work with XMA because of the trust the two organisations had already built up during a long partnership.

“We had been working with XMA for some years,’ he explains. “We knew it was a member of the Crescent purchasing consortium – which many higher and further education colleges rely on.

“We had always found XMA staff helpful and happy to listen to our input. We wanted to be closely involved in working through the project and creating the final solution together. We believed that partnership has helped us get the best value from the solution.”

Alan is keen to look to the future too. “We are already investigating implementing some of Kyocera’s multifunctional products as part of a managed service and we will – of course – be looking to XMA to arrange the best deal for us.”