It`s no longer about the number of devices companies own, but about the rands and cents they save by optimizing paper usage
Within the past seven years, the business technologies industry has seen a radical shift in procurement decision making, from the office buyer or procurement officer, to the IT department, and most recently to the financial director.
Minolta South Africa MD, Alan Griffith, says decisions are increasingly influenced by financial savings as more and more companies opt to buy prints and copies rather than printers and copiers.
"Financial directors have acknowledged the impact of these savings on the bottom line. A local leisure company recently reported an additional R1,5-million profit, which they attributed to the savings generated from the implementation of Minolta South Africa`s document output solution - profit that the company`s financial director admits would have been impossible to generate merely by increasing sales of its product," says Griffith.
Minolta recently signed an outsourcing deal with Kumba Resources that will save the mining company 34% on annual internal print and copy costs. Griffith says Kumba is buying financial savings. "Minolta`s role is to provide a document optimisation output system that will do the job efficiently and save the company money," he says.
Griffith says when copiers, printers and faxes moved into the world of IT and had to be integrated with the IT infrastructure, the buying decision for these devices shifted from the office buyer or procurement officer to the IT specialist.
"Two years ago the real competitive edge in office automation came from a supplier`s ability to integrate effectively with the network, enhance the performance of the devices through software applications, and to support the technical and software components of the infrastructure.
"With increased product parity and an industry that is relatively well prepared to meet the needs of the IT specialist, we have found that the focus is firmly on the bottom line and it`s all about who can deliver the greatest savings and best support," says Griffith.
Griffith says over the past year, an increasing number of tender submissions have been presented to company financial directors rather than the IT experts. "In addition, our financial director is also called on more regularly to contribute to proposals and flesh out the financial benefits for potential clients," he says.
Griffith says this procurement shift is partly a result of the trend for more companies to outsource their document output management. "The outsourcing model means clients pay for output and not process. Minolta installs the hardware, software, tracking and billing systems and provides the people to manage the process.
"Clients only pay for the prints and copies made. A document management system allows us to recover costs and manage expenses associated with prints, copies, faxes and scans. This is done by breaking down document production costs per user, department, cost centre, project or billing code," says Griffith.
Minolta`s outsourcing solutions begin with a thorough audit of the client`s existing infrastructure to determine current and future user requirements. After an analysis of the current situation, a solution is designed to meet the required output of the client and a print policy is instituted. Once implemented, Minolta provides ongoing advisory, software and technical support.
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