The Seychelles Ministry of Education has bought 43 Xerox WorkCentre Pro 245 machines from Bytes Document Solutions for placement at every public educational institution throughout the country.
VCS, the authorised Xerox distributor in the Seychelles, has signed a maintenance and support agreement with the ministry.
The Seychelles Ministry has equipped each public primary school, secondary school and higher education institution in the country with a heavy-duty copier-printer in order to improve efficiency and reduce the workload on machines and personnel.
"Due to foreign exchange restrictions, VCS could not buy the machines on behalf of the ministry in a preferred managed services agreement," says Jacques van Wyk, Africa operations manager at Bytes Document Solutions, the sole authorised distributor of Xerox in sub-Saharan Africa. "Therefore the ministry outsourced the necessary foreign exchange to buy the machines directly from Bytes Document Solutions on the agreement that VCS will provide all necessary maintenance and support functions as required."
Prior to the purchase, all public educational institutions under the ministry`s jurisdiction used a variety of smaller copiers from numerous vendors. Local print shops were often used to accommodate the printing and copying requirements that could not be fulfilled at the ministry.
The Xerox WorkCentre Pro 245 machines will be used for the copying and printing of educational reference papers, books, notes, documents, exam papers and student, teacher and parent communications.
"With the Xerox equipment improving the effectiveness of our schools and containing the costs of document production, the ministry intends to introduce the scanning and networking options available for the WorkCentre machines," says Jones Belmont, director of resource planning and project development at the Seychelles Ministry of Education. "In their basic setups, these machines have already impacted positively on the ministry`s document output, making our schools more independent and quality-conscious."
Most large organisations in the Seychelles have their own devices, while smaller operations remain printer- and copier-less, says Natasha Chun-Loye, Xerox sales executive at VCS.
"Lack of foreign exchange poses a serious challenge to businesses wanting to invest in new equipment," she says. "The current foreign exchange shortage is limiting our ability to meet the demands of smaller businesses that are unable to raise the foreign exchange required to purchase new equipment. This has resulted in a market focused on purchase price rather than functionality and total cost of ownership. The Ministry of Education`s acquisition of the Xerox WorkCentre machines will help educate people on the importance of functionality and demonstrate that total cost of ownership is within any business`s reach."
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As the authorised Xerox distributor to 24 sub-Saharan countries, Bytes Document Solutions, previously known as Xerox South Africa, is engaged in the marketing and servicing of the complete range of Xerox document equipment, software, solutions and services, and operating through an extensive network of distributors, dealers, concessionaires and channel partners. With black economic empowerment partner Kagiso Holdings owning a 27% stake of the business, it is a wholly owned member of the JSE Securities Exchange-listed Bytes Technology Group.
For more information on Bytes Document Solutions and Xerox, visit www.xerox.com/news.
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