Ceram is an international, independent materials technology company based in Stoke-on-Trent and employing 150 local people.
As a customer of the GB Group since 2003, Ceram had several multi-functional devices located in different departments across two different sites. Yet the company still looked at printing in a very traditional manner, with most PCs connected to a stand alone inkjet or laser printer. Because most of the printers were not connected via the network, Ceram had no clear view on how many prints were being produced or at what cost per page.
Ceram’s Finance Director recognised that the company’s print costs were significant and on the increase. The IT department was keen to have more control over printing and wanted to reduce the number of printing devices onsite.
Sally Cooper, the GB Group’s Sales Manager, carried out a full print audit across both sites and all printing devices. A portfolio of every single piece of printing hardware was built to include its location, type of unit, prints it had produced in a given period, and its cost per page. The audit found that the majority of printers were printing low volume but had a very high cost per print, and that in most cases the devices were colour, which was not required in most departments. Whilst expensive to run, most of the original print fleet had poor functionality - no double siding, sorting or scanning. The audit also revealed that a number of the MFDs already onsite were under utilised.
What did the customer say?
“The GB Group is swift to respond to our service needs and downtime is kept to a minimum. If equipment becomes a problem due to a change in our application or departmental growth they always recommend a suitable upgrade before matters get out of hand. All the staff at the GB Group have been extremely helpful – they even have a dedicated member of staff to ensure our staff are comprehensively trained on all aspects of the equipment installed. However it’s also good to know that the Directors have an open door policy. If I need to talk to Rob directly he is always accessible and ready to help, which is very refreshing.
We can trust GB to ‘get things done’ and know we can rely on them from supply through to service support and after sales training.”