Fujitsu: Transforming Print with Canon Managed Print Services
Efficiency Supported By Standardisation
As a leading Japanese ICT company of over 140,000 employees, Fujitsu provides a full range of technology products solutions and services to customers in over 100 countries worldwide. The company offers unified communications and collaboration, identity and access management and voice and data networks. These critical services enable Fujitsu employees to serve external customers.
When the company wanted to streamline its operations across all European and Indian territories, one of its challenges was pulling together all the sub-regions into a single, unified Fujitsu EMEIA. While the company has seen impressive growth and success over the past decade, the fragmented and inefficient IT and print solutions across its European offices was hindering effective collaboration between the countries. The existing print fleet was ageing, and with a third-party secure print solution that was cumbersome and difficult to integrate. “The biggest issue was how unreliable it was” comments Jon Burnby, Director of IT Services Europe, Fujitsu. “The user experience was poor, and there wasn’t much in the way of service or user support. And of course, its fragmentation meant that employees who travelled between offices couldn’t use their existing credentials to log into the IT and print system while on the move. The whole thing was outdated, and it needed to change.”
A legacy IT solution
To provide a world-class service to clients in every local market, Fujitsu’s internal processes had to operate smoothly. Employees needed time and flexibility to focus on their customers. This meant that while travelling, workers needed rapid access to the system and to be able to print documents on the move.
However, the company had outgrown its incumbent print solution, and a change was needed. Coupled with the reduction in print volumes over the past years, the excess of devices was making management problematic. Numerous individual printing contracts in various countries, with different suppliers and contact end dates, was causing a headache for the IT department. It was not cost effective and it made the user experience for visiting employees unnecessarily difficult.
Security was also an issue. With so many machines and no dedicated integrated security solution, the problem of documents being left unattended and a lack of oversight from both an employee and management perspective could have escalated and led to problems of compliance or breaches down the line. As each individual office had a different security and management solution, the company could not establish full control over their print fleet from an EMEA level.
It was clear that with the business under pressure to consolidate its European regional offices, the continuation of the fragmented print solution would eventually lead to more inefficiencies, lost productivity and struggle for security management. As the business was already due a refresh of the print solution, it seemed like an optimal time to upgrade.
Not only are Canon experts in their field, they took the time to understand our business and come up with a vision that almost exactly matched our own.
Changing for the better
After a thorough consultation with Canon, both parties recognised that the two companies were philosophically and culturally well matched. “Canon shared our vision for the company,” mentioned Jon. “There was no question that they were experts in their field. But what impressed us the most was Canon’s willingness to listen to our problems, take time to understand our business and come up with a vision that almost exactly matched our own. We knew that working with Canon was going to be the best thing for our business.”
Canon’s first steps were to point out the excess of devices and streamline and rationalise the fleet. Canon also spoke to Fujitsu about digitising their workflows, to control the need for so many printers, pointing out the efficiencies gained along the way. In total, the fleet of 1,200 was reduced by almost 700 devices and standardised across the continents. The new fleet was comprised of 90% Canon imageRUNNER devices and 10% single function printers,
“The new devices are not just faster and better integrated, they’re also sleeker. They’re visually more pleasing and align much better with who we are as a brand: fast, modern and effective.
Thanks to Canon’s uniFLOW solution, Fujitsu gained total control over its print fleet from an EMEA level, and was able to accurately track all printing, scanning and copying expenses. The provision of Secure Print, MY PRINT ANYWHERE Print, Mobile & Guest Printing, as well as the easy integration meant that mobile printing became quick and effortless across regions. Most importantly, Canon was able to improve Fujitsu’s document security across the regions, with printing now requiring authorised identification via a SmartCard - which were also standardised across countries.
With Canon’s MPS solution, we have seen an approximate saving of 35% in our overall printing costs
The benefits were felt almost immediately. “With Canon’s MPS solution, we have seen an approximate saving of 35% in our overall printing costs compared to the previous solution,” stated Jon. “This has had a knock-on effect across the entire business, as all internal IT costs add up.”
As printing became easier, quicker, and standardised in every office, Fujitsu found a sharp increase in productivity. Managing the service also became easier thanks to the new consistency and Canon’s centralised reporting function. “We’re an international company first and foremost” said Jon, “and if we’re going to operate internationally as a single unit, we must give our employees the tools to print on the move, and from whatever office they choose to work in.”
Pursuing market opportunities
As an existing partner of Canon’s, Fujitsu has been able to speak to its customers in more depth about Canon printing solutions and the benefits of uniFLOW. As both companies joined forces, they were able to jointly pursue existing market opportunities in parallel with the addition of the MPS solution.
“Canon’s work with Fujitsu is a great example of how an ideal partnership should be: a print service provider and IT service provider can work together to offer a stronger and more complete service,” concluded Allard Borgers, European Manager Alliances, Canon Europe. “As well as improving customer services, Fujitsu employees now have more time to spend on growing their departments, instead of the administrative tasks involved in printing and other manual workflows. It’s a win-win on all counts.”
Technology for scalable growth
For Jon, “the advantage of working with Canon isn’t just that they understood our needs so well. It’s also a solution that will move and grow with us. Fujitsu will always be changing and expanding, and it’s reassuring to know that our technology is best-in-class and won’t simply expire when times change. We can scale it up or down as we need, and we’re very happy to work with a partner that can both support and continue on this journey with us.”
