Leading European insurer

Europe’s largest independently owned insurance intermediary was established in 1997. They pride themselves on their entrepreneurial approach and provide over 200 general and specialist insurance products in niche markets for both business and individual customers. Balreed's remote managed print services pro-actively maintains their print infrastructure.

The company
The company has over 4,500 staff based in 100 offices across the UK and, since they started trading, their total income has grown year on year to achieve £317 million in 2008. The IT Director spoke to us recently about how Balreed’s remote managed print services has benefited the business.

The problem
“We began our partnership with Balreed about six or seven years ago, when we were just starting out. I think we had one photocopier that wasn’t working well and they solved the problem for us. Over the years, our business has grown substantially – we make a few acquisitions each year, and Balreed has grown with us. The professional service is second to none and they have never become complacent, despite the long term relationship.

“The nature of our business means that our employees scan a lot of big documents to email and send them internally around the business.

We use our multi-functional devices for this and we realised that the large volume of scanned documents employees were emailing to each other was putting a huge strain on our network. The file sizes of the scanned documents were substantial and the excessive use of bandwidth clogged up the network, slowing it right down. The impact on our business was serious and we needed to take urgent remedial action. We investigated various options available to us, and eventually approached Balreed for help. We wanted to find out if there was a possibility of reducing the sizes of the documents being scanned on the multi-functional devices.”

The solution
“As usual, Balreed responded with enthusiasm and, using their remote management capability, ran some tests to experiment with various settings for saving the scanned files.

“One of the real benefits of the service they offer us is their ability to proactively manage our fleet from their own offices. The software they use monitors the activity of all our networked multi-functional devices and printers and allows them to access the web browsers virtually. They can remotely update our email address books, clear print queues and manage all the software updates from manufacturers on our behalf.

“The application lets the Balreed remote management support desk know when a device needs attention and when consumables need replenishing. Their engineers are even able to access devices before they leave for a call-out to gather the diagnostic information they need. Importantly, we also have a platform available to monitor the volumes of pages being printed per site and stay in control of our costs.

“Using their remote management facility, Balreed came up with a recommendation to change the scan settings on the multi-functional devices which resulted in an average reduction of 68% in the file sizes. We didn’t hesitate and asked them to implement the change immediately.

“Once again, their remote management tool came to the rescue. Balreed changed the settings on about 120 devices, in all our offices across the UK, without interrupting our work. We didn’t even know it had happened until we received the call to say it was done.”

“As we have approximately 750 devices across 100 offices, you can imagine the cost savings and efficiencies this service provides.

“Anyone can sell you office equipment. But the difference between a supplier and a partner is service. And service, of course, is delivered by people. To me, having a professional support team proactively ensuring the fleet is operating at its optimum definitely sets them apart from their competitors. Balreed doesn’t stop at using the software to make sure we have toner three days before we need it. In this instance, they used their remote management technology to find a solution and implement it, and at the same time added value to our bottom line.”