Lexmark International SA today announced that its service subsidiary, Tech-nique Corporate Services, had signed a national service partner contract with First Technology.
"This relationship allows us to provide a wider range of solutions to our clients and customers," commented Mike Bekker, MD of Tech-nique. "For example, it enables us not only to market Lexmark and Tally into outlying areas and neighbouring states, but also gives us the edge to go into large corporations where there has been a bigger multi-brand presence than Lexmark and Tally.
"As from 1 December 2001, Tech-nique will handle Lexmark and Tally work, including First Technology contracts and depot work, in our major centres, (Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth) while all other brands will be handled by First Technology. In the outlying areas, (Bloemfontein, East London, Witbank, Pietermaritzburg, Richards Bay, Klerksdorp, Pietersburg and all surrounding areas) all services and repairs on Lexmark, Tally and other brands will be First Technology`s responsibility," continued Bekker.
"This means that we can now offer a more extensive range of services including desktop and network support, and manage our customers entire installed base country-wide as opposed to just Lexmark and Tally brands. Our arrangement with First Technology also ensure our customers in the outlying areas will receive a better service from us. If they stay in areas where we do not have a presence they no longer have to drive into one of our major centres to have their printers repaired," concluded Bekker.
"We are very excited about this new strategic relationship with Tech-nique as it extends our ability to offer our customers almost a one-stop warranty repair facility on the country`s most popular printer brands," commented Rob Matthews, MD of First Technology.
"Organising warranty repairs for faulty equipment in a mixed IT environment can be an administrative nightmare and can increase the total cost of ownership of the equipment. Corporates usually have to deal with several different support companies. Now they just have to deal with one," Matthews added.
Also included in the agreement between First Technology and Tech-nique is an extensive Inkjet exchange programme, that means is that if a customer buys a Lexmark inkjet from a retailer and the unit is not working correctly, they can bring it into one of the service centres. If the unit is found to be faulty it will be replaced with an exchange unit.
However, Tech-nique still be doing inkjet repairs in the major centres, (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth), but primarily exchanging in the outlying areas. Tech-nique will handle all the relevant processes involved in the Inkjet programme.
For further information, please contact Mike Bekker, Anton Fisher or the relevant product manager at tel. (011) 329 0999; fax (011) 792 7449; e-mail mike.bekker@tech-nique.co.za or anton.fisher@tech-nique.co.za
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Lexmark International SA is a subsidiary of Lexmark International, one of the world`s leading providers of printing solutions. Lexmark International SA has offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.
First Technology, one of SA`s largest independent value-added resellers, provides customers with solutions and services that maximise business productivity, reduces the risk associated with deploying new technologies and minimises the total cost of IT ownership. The company has fully-fledged branches in every major business node across SA and maintains one of the largest teams of highly skilled technical personnel in the country.
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