Office automation company, PanSolutions has wooed paper giant Sappi with its managed document services proposal, overcoming stiff competition to win a three-year contract to install and manage 325 devices.
Although it is a relatively new name in the industry, PanSolutions has a long track record providing office automation hardware and software solutions to corporates and industry in South Africa. Originally part of the Panasonic stable, the company separated to form a fully fledged office automation division in 2010. Today, PanSolutions primarily deals in KYOCERA multifunction devices and is an official distributor of KYOCERA office machines. As might be expected, the substantial tender for one of South Africa's industry leaders attracted the attention of many of the office automation heavyweights in the country.
Theo Williams of PanSolutions explains: "Our proposal hinged on a managed document services (MDS) solution with an extension to a managed print services solution. This approach was taken in order to meet Sappi's requirement for cost and usage reporting down to the user level. This would allow them to interface these cost centres with their SAP accounting system.
"Currently the main SAP server exists abroad in The Netherlands and does not allow for print cost centre integration at a local user level. Sappi were looking for a solution that would not only ensure cost efficiency, reliability and device optimisation, but would also allow for detailed reporting to feed into their SAP system. Our MPS solution, combined with the software integrated into our systems, allowed us to fulfil these requirements."
In addition, through an extension to MDS, the PanSolutions proposal offered a great deal of control to Sappi in terms of its print policies. Surprisingly for a company of this size, Sappi did not have printing policies in place governing the utilisation of its device fleet. Therefore, included in the solution was the designing of ironclad print policies, ensuring print traffic is directed to the most cost-efficient machines in the system, all of which is managed through PanSolutions' Smartprint software, offering supreme control over the entire document environment.
MPS has become a buzzword in the industry in recent times as the new international best-practice approach. In simple terms, MPS refers to the management of multifunction device fleets in a unified fashion. The core components of an MPS proposal involve the designing of a hardware and software solution that includes management information with consolidated billing, installing and maintaining of the equipment fleet and ongoing optimisation of the environment throughout the contract life. There are a wide variety of other service and software applications that may be integrated with this core.
However, it seems not all solutions are created equal, and many different paths may be taken to reach the same destination. Ultimately, it comes down to the solution designer's knowledge of MPS concepts, coupled with an understanding of the intricacies of the customer's business requirements that play a role in the creation of a successful plan.
One example of how an MPS solution can fall short is the area of change management. Williams explains: "Within each company there are separate entities with their own policies and procedures. These include commercial enterprise divisions, procurement divisions and legal departments. If these entities are not aligned, the solution often stalls. Therefore, change management does not apply only to the users of the devices within the fleet, but also involves the process of working in concert with these entities to find common ground and ensure the system can run smoothly. This was one of the components of our solution that impressed Sappi."
Even then, the task of articulating such a detailed and complex plan is a science all on its own. This is one of the areas where Williams believes PanSolutions was able to elevate its proposal by creating a step-by-step plan that clearly laid out the principles of the solution in high-definition, including implementation plan and change management strategy. Williams points out that theirs was not the cheapest option on the table, so he believes the quality of the MPS design, along with his detailed document, shifted the balance in the favour of PanSolutions.
For Sappi to bypass the industry's usual suspects to arrive at this solution certainly tells a story. It's indicative of a shift from short-term cost saving to long-term utilisation, optimisation and benefit realisation that offers companies more levers with which to identify long-term cost saving opportunities. On paper, the PanSolutions MPS solution proved to tick all the right boxes for Sappi.
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