Beaverbrooks

Beaverbrooks is an award-winning family owned jewellers since 1919 with 69 stores across the UK, providing exceptional quality jewellery, diamonds and watches.

Beaverbrooks engaged with Maintel to deliver a consolidated, upgraded managed print solution for its head office, located in Lytham St Annes.

The project was agreed in 2015, before going live in April 2016.

The challenge

In 2015 Beaverbrooks had a number of different print suppliers, supporting a raft of different makes and models of printers and devices in its head office in Lytham St Annes.

This diverse print estate included both desktop printers and several larger format print devices to cater for 120 office employees. This included general office printing, scanning and faxing requirements, as well as the more specialised needs of the web fulfillment and repair functions.

The nature of the existing print estate was causing a number of problems. Beaverbrooks felt the cost of owning, managing and supporting the estate was too high, and was putting a burden on IT.

Between dealing with a multitude of suppliers, managing numerous diverse device types (requiring a range of toners and supplies) and needing to constantly update a range of different print drivers, it was becoming increasingly challenging for the in-house IT team to support the estate effectively.

Beaverbrooks was also experiencing issues with print wastage. People were often finding unwanted documents printed and discarded on the devices, an unnecessary expense and a potential problem if sensitive documents fell into the wrong hands due to an ill-timed printer jam.

Recognising that the current set up wasn’t working as efficiently as it could, Beaverbrooks turned to Maintel to come up with a solution. 

“With several suppliers and numerous different makes and models of printers, our print estate was becoming unmanageable, and a drain on our IT team’s time and productivity.

We understood a better approach was needed and engaged with Maintel, who suggested a print audit to help understand exactly what we had, what we were spending, and then to suggest a suitable solution based on these findings. ” 

James Anderton, IT Project Manager, Beaverbrooks.

The solution

Maintel conducted a print audit in 2015 which involved an expert analysis of Beaverbrooks’ print and document utilisation across the site, including the technology, usage, processes and workflows. As a result of the audit findings, Maintel suggested implementing a managed print service (MPS) to consolidate the existing print estate into a single contract, from one supplier, with the ability to standardise the technology across the office. This would deliver greater visibility, cost savings and ease of support.

Maintel conducted a print audit in 2015 which involved an expert analysis of Beaverbrooks’ print and document utilisation across the site, including the technology, usage, processes and workflows. As a result of the audit findings, Maintel suggested implementing a managed print service (MPS) to consolidate the existing print estate into a single contract, from one supplier, with the ability to standardise the technology across the office. This would deliver greater visibility, cost savings and ease of support.

Maintel was selected to provide a complete managed print solution for Beaverbrooks HQ on a five-year contract.

Maintel was selected to provide a complete managed print solution for Beaverbrooks HQ on a five-year contract.

Maintel worked with Beaverbrooks to advise which printers would fit their requirements, deploying a fleet of standardised Canon devices as the foundation of the  managed print solution.

To deliver the necessary visibility and control of the upgraded printer fleet, Maintel deployed  uniFLOW Output Manager, software, a scalable output management solution. 

The solution consisted of:

10 x Canon Imagerunner Advance 250i multi-functional devices to handle peoples’ day-to-day printing, scanning and copying needs

11 x Canon LBP6680X single function devices for use where individuals required personal desktop printers due to the nature of their web fullfillment and repair jobs.

uniFLOW Output Manager software on 21 Canon machines across the Lytham St Annes office.

“By appointing Maintel to implement a managed print service for our head office, we solved many of our challenges in a single stroke.

Replacing multiple suppliers, contracts and devices with a single solution with upgraded, standardised machines and proactive support with stringent SLAs reduced the burden on our IT support team, gave our people a more effective print set-up and delivered cost efficiencies.  “

James Anderton, IT Project Manager

This solution enabled Beaverbrooks to benefit from a single operating system across all devices. Users quickly became familiar with one machine with the confidence that they would use the same operating system whichever device they printed or scanned from.

All the devices were networked, and the uniFLOW print management software delivers the ability to manage and report on all devices centrally, including all usage and statistics. 

As a jewellers, security at the Beaverbrooks premises was of paramount importance. Another feature of the UniFlow software was the ability to offer secure and mobile printing functionality.

Employees are able to send print jobs to a central print queue and collect from any device using their own employee proximity cards, which allow access to the building, as print cards. This means every employee can both securely authenticate their identity and access their print jobs with the tap of a key fob or RFID card.

The benefits

A more flexible, secure print service

One of the biggest advantages of the new system for employees is the flexibility that the uniFLOW system offers. Employees can now access alternative printers should one printer be unsuitable, unavailable or out of service.

Similarly, integrating the uniFLOW system with ID access allows employees to simply and securely collect their print outs from any device without having to remember a pin or carry an additional print card. Now print jobs are only activated when the employee is at the device to collect it, meaning there is no more unnecessary printing and no risk of sensitive documents falling into the wrong hands.

Easier to manage, more reliable and with greater visibility of usage

By deploying a fleet of upgraded Canon devices as a managed print service, keeping the printer fleet running smoothly and efficiently was a much simpler task for the IT team. Ease of management was hugely improved due to only needing to support standardised devices, with the UniFLOW management software able to proactively highlight any problems on the networks.

The managed print service also automates day-to-day tasks such as toner ordering, centrally manages the updating of print drivers and offers just one partner and a single point of contact for any print issues.

Furthermore, uniFLOW’s display offers full visibility of document output, meaning that usage information is easy to monitor. This allows IT to create business information reports on usage levels and cost profiles associated with the print and copy jobs.

Seamless deployment and a true print partner

Previously many employees had individual desktop printers, which they were reluctant to give up. A real culture change was needed to convince people to update their approach, so Maintel brought experts onsite to help guide Beaverbrooks through the transition. The new upgraded print fleet, ability to print and collect documents from any multi-functional device and ease of support for IT soon won team members.

24/7 proactive support and monitoring, along with tight SLAs, ensure the print estate continues to support the business. Maintel remotely monitors the estate day-to-day and automatically orders toner, registers faults and takes meter readings, meaning the IT team spends less time troubleshooting and rectifying simple print issues.

“Employees have been very happy with the change to MPS. The printers are more reliable and better located, while UniFLOW software and automated toner ordering helps IT keep the fleet functioning day-to-day without being a drain on the team’s time and resource.”

Leave a Reply