Reed Exhibitions
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading organiser of trade and consumer events. The company manages over 460 high profle conferences and exhibitions each year, bringing together over six million business people and consumers worldwide. With 2,400 employees and a network of ofce and promoters extending to 65 countries, Reed’s print requirement is extensive and diverse.
Following a move to a new head ofce in Richmond, south west London, Reed took the opportunity to review its current print infrastructure and invited SCC to manage the entire process, consolidating and rationalising its entire print estate.
“SCC has worked closely with Reed Exhibitions to develop a resilient and flexible managed print service through regular customer reviews shaping a service which has allowed Reed Exhibitions IT resource to focus on other business critical requirements. ”
The Challenge
Reed had two clear objectives in mind with regard to its print fleet –to reduce printing and associated service costs, and increase business productivity.
Its aging estate, comprising over 160 diverse printers and standalone photocopiers, was becoming increasingly unreliable and monopolised a significant amount of internal IT support time. In addition, with no clear architecture, the fleet was complex and costly to support, leading to disruption across the business.
In addition to a lack of reliability, print quality was often below the standard required by Reed’s clients, and as a result the company was outsourcing print, thereby extending lead times on key projects and increasing its internal cost base.
SCC was asked to provide a solution to resolve these issues, whilst providing in-built flexibility for future growth and to serve Reed’s evolving print requirements.
The Solution
Critically aware that any new print hardware would need to integrate with Reed’s existing IT infrastructure, the company was keen to capitalise on SCC’s end-to-end approach to implementing print infrastructure and services, leaving the print management team to devise an effective print solution and manage the upgrade.
After analysing the current fleet and Reed’s specific requirements, SCC specified a standardised and controlled environment of just 16 high volume Xerox MFDs, incorporating printing, copying and scanning, with a further 12 HP desktop printers for bespoke applications.
Working with the internal IT team, SCC implemented a ‘pull printing’ solution, whereby users could access any printer within the entire network, should their default device fail. In addition, with the introduction of Equitrac pull printing (requiring users to input a pin number at the printer to process and access their print) Reed could ensure that documents were printed only when required, thereby significantly reducing wastage. The introduction of pull printing also meant that the Company could now monitor cost by usage, thereby bringing visibility and control to its use of print across the business.
Summary of Benefits
- Cost control - With full visibility of print use vs cost, the introduction of new management controls and a reduction in outsourced print and requests for internal IT support to fix aging and redundant devices, SCC has delivered on Reed’s core objective, to reduce print and associated service costs as well as business disruption.
- Full service solution - SCC’s experience in delivering specialist print infrastructure services was called up by Reed to manage the entire upgrade and rationalisation of its print estate, from procurement and implementation through to training users in working with the new devices and the additional functionality they could now access.
- Future proof
With a fleet now equipped to adapt to Reed’s evolving requirement, the company has the confidence that it has the capacity and flexibility to handle its planned future development.
- Energy savings
With a reduction in devices from 160 to just 30, all of which have power save functionality, Reed has had
the opportunity to massively reduce its print energy costs.
“SCC has worked successfully with Reed Exhibitions over the last 3 years to continuously improve and evolve their managed print service to reflect our changing requirements. They have delivered on our core objectives of cost reduction, service improvement whilst delivering an unsurpassed level of business continuity.”David Rowe, Corporate Facilities Manager, Reed Exhibitions
