OMEX Agriculture Case Study

• Industry: Manufacturing and Agriculture
• Company Size: +150 employees
• Location: The United Kingdom

Overview

When OMEX Agriculture was at the end of its legacy MPS (managed print services) contract, they conducted a competitive tender process to modernise their print infrastructure.  

For Group ICT Manager Mark Armstrong, the new solution needed to address several key pain points. At the top of the list was zero visibility into how the print was consumed across the organization. 

One of Mark's key criteria was understanding the true cost of print, being able to monitor and manage volume output by user, department, and device, and controlling the usage of color. Reducing costs was also a main driver of change.  

SAFEQ Cloud has helped OMEX to:

• Get visibility into print activity and make data-driven decisions to reduce the cost of print
• Restrict access to color printing
• Implement secure pull-printing
• Automate and streamline administrative tasks

Solution

Single Pan of Glass

After evaluating the organization’s needs, the print provider, a Y Soft partner, recommended upgrading the legacy multi-vendor fleet with 20 new networked multifunctional printers (MFPs) and leveraging SAFEQ Cloud to migrate the print infrastructure to the cloud.

SAFEQ Cloud enabled the entire printing infrastructure to be deployed and controlled from a web-based interface.

From a single pane of glass, Mark now has visibility and transparency over: 

• device usage
• which individual machines are over-or under-utilised
• what volumes are being produced—specified by user and printer

Cost per click billing model

Under the terms of the legacy contract, OMEX Agriculture was committed to one million pages per year, split equally across four quarters. However, printing is seasonal, activity spikes in the Spring, and volumes are much lower for the rest of the year. 

By moving to a cost-per-click billing model, OMEX Agriculture only pays for what it prints. The new billing model eliminated massive overcharges that the organisation received during busy periods. 

“Visibility over printer usage has been a huge value-add. We now understand which printers are being used the most and importantly, backed by data, we will be able to further rationalise the fleet moving forward ,”  Group ICT Manager Mark Armstrong explained.

Restricting access to color print

One of the biggest advantages of the new cloud-based print infrastructure has been the ability to set up printer rules to reduce wasted color printing. Implementing rules-based printing, restricting color access, and setting mono as the default for specific document types has enabled OMEX Agriculture to drive down printing expenditures significantly.

The majority of document output is invoices and delivery notes, both of which rise exponentially in the spring. In March and April, on average, OMEX Agriculture makes around 200 deliveries per day. 

Under the old regime, printing around 5,600 delivery notes in triplicate each month cost £504. Now, after setting restrictions to only permit black-and-white output, the cost is just £50. 

“The solution is delivering significant cost savings. But importantly, we now understand exactly where we are making those savings. The data is the most powerful part of the solution, the ability to pull off reports and analyse how print is being consumed will help us to continue to control the cost of print and shape our future decision-making – that’s something we have never had before,” Group ICT Manager Mark Armstrong said.

User-centricity

Easy to use and set up, secure pull printing functionality has enabled OMEX to increase the level of security surrounding printed information. It is now much easier for staff members to securely access printed documents wherever they are and whenever it’s convenient for them.

With SAFEQ Cloud, users can easily press "print" and authenticate with a PIN on any device, whereas previously, they had to go into the driver settings and select a specific printer, which was cumbersome. Another added value feature of the platform is location-aware printing, which enables users to access a printer seamlessly and securely, regardless of network or location. 

Staff working in different offices don’t have to waste time setting up devices or scrolling through multiple print drivers already set up on their laptops. 

SAFEQ Cloud only shows the staff the available printers at their location. More importantly, this will also further reduce waste and costs, by preventing individuals from sending and resending a print job to a printer that's not in that office — which has happened in the past.

“Secure print is much better than before, it works really well. People didn’t use it before but it’s so easy now, it’s become the norm. This functionality, combined with the visibility we now have over individual device usage, will enable us to make the case for removing personal desktop printers which are used infrequently. We expect to be able to reduce the fleet by 50%, which will deliver additional savings,”  Group ICT Manager Mark Armstrong explained.

Benefits

Cloud technology reduces the cost and complexity associated with a traditional print environment, lessens the burden on IT, and virtually eliminates common IT helpdesk pain points.

For OMEX, the rollout was seamless and straightforward; SAFEQ Cloud enables printers to be deployed remotely through a single pane of glass, and end-user fulfillment and device provisioning are fully automated. 

Moving forward, IT doesn’t have to spend time supporting print servers, updating multiple printer drivers, troubleshooting, or monitoring security patches. With SAFEQ Cloud, time-intensive manual steps can be fully automated.

 “The solution is delivering significant cost savings. But importantly, we now understand exactly where we are making those savings. The data is the most powerful part of the solution, the ability to pull off reports and analyse how print is being consumed will help us to continue to control the cost of print and shape our future decision-making – that’s something we have never had before,” Group ICT Manager Mark Armstrong said.

Want to see how SAFEQ Cloud can help your organization reach simple, secure printing best practices the same way OMEX Agriculture did? Get an expert-guided demo of SAFEQ Cloud and get all your questions answered on the fly.