Case Study

Newcastle Building SocietyFinancial ServicesManaged Document Services

Newcastle Building Society’s entire print infrastructure isprovided and supported by Ricoh under oneconsolidated Managed Document Services solution. The results of successfully managing the print

Name: Newcastle Building Society

Location: Newcastle, North East England

Size: Assets in excess of £4.4bn

Activity: Financial services

Challenges• Print and photocopying managed by separate

business operations

• Increasing cost and resource drain managing multiple

devices, brands and consumables from many suppliers

• Regulatory pressure to improve document

management and document auditing

Executive summary

Solution• Ricoh Managed Document Services

Benefits• Delivers a 50% cost reduction in both colour and

black & white cost per page

• Helps to reduce the environmental impact of the

business

• Streamlines the way people manage, print and

distribute documents

• Flexibility to print documents at any location

Ricoh helps to reducecost, improve efficiencyand lower environmentalimpact at leading mutualbuilding society

infrastructure in this way include substantial andrapid cost savings as well as helping to reduce theenvironmental impact of the business.

.

ChallengesNewcastle Building Society (NBS) is one of the leading andstrongest mutual building societies in the UK with assetsunder management in excess of £4.4 billion. As a mutualorganisation its profits are invested back into the businessand not paid out in the form of dividends to a limitednumber of shareholders.

NBS has more branches than any other building society inthe North East. With a Head Office and a call centreoperation in Tyneside, it also has 35 branches across theNorth of England and one in Gibraltar. The task ofcontrolling printer and photocopier usage was therefore amajor challenge.

Like many organisations NBS had the age-old structure ofprint and photocopying resources under separateagreements between the IT and Facilities departments. Thismeant that over the years they acquired multiple devices,brands and consumables from many suppliers, all supportedby traditional break/fix contracts. The cost of supporting thisenvironment was getting increasingly high, both in financialspend and key staff resources.

Simon Gent, IT Support Services Manager, says, “The mixedfleet and lack of control resulted in many problems gettinglogged with the IT Service Desk. The IT services team weredealing with the symptoms rather than tackling the rootcause of the problems, so we definitely needed a morestrategic approach to our print and scan environment.”

This came at a time when the business – and the widerbanking community - was under pressure to manageincreasing document workflow. For example, British bankshave introduced strict regulations about opening bankaccounts with customers now needing to supply multipledocuments for identification purposes. All this informationneeds to be captured, processed, stored and managed byfinancial institutions in order to comply with securityprocedures.

It is not just compliance that is a burden for banks andbuilding societies either. They face the same commercialpressures as any other business, with an increasing emphasison colour print for customer correspondence andmanagement information.

“We needed a solution that would give first our HeadOffice, and ultimately our branches, access to fast, reliableand cost effective colour printing,” explains Gent.

SolutionRicoh introduced a Managed Document Service (MDS) –streamlining all print and photocopying services and fullyintegrating them into the building society’s existing ITnetwork. The progressive solution all started with athorough print audit to provide NBS with knowledge ofexactly what devices they had, their operating costs andusage trends.

From this base of understanding Ricoh used its experienceand expertise to right-size the print environment to a mix ofsingle function and multifunction products (MFPs). A total of37 Ricoh MFPs and over 48 desktop printers now serve theprint, fax and scanning needs of more than 900 head officestaff. Every hardware device is networked and centrallycontrolled by the IT services team, with Equitracautomatically routing print to the most cost effective deviceand Ricoh Virtual Engineer (RVE) proactively monitoring thewhole estate to maximise uptime and efficiency.

MFP access is controlled by proximity card with usersrequired to enter a PIN number for added security andaccountability. FollowMe printing and Secure Release givesstaff further functionality to print their documents off anydevice they choose, when they choose. This even extendsacross sites, so someone could send a print job from theirdesk in the Portland Street Head Office in Newcastle UponTyne and pick it up at a later time or date in the new CobaltBusiness Park location in North Tyneside.

“What Ricoh and NBS are essentially doing with this MDSsolution is streamlining the way people manage, print anddistribute documents across the business,” says Gent. “Thecombination of Equitrac and RVE provides us with

Case Study Newcastle Building Society

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management information on all activity, including volumesand print costs by authorised user. This in turn enables NBSto cross charge for third party businesses includingnumerous other UK finance institutions that use ourservices.”

Benefits

The entire print infrastructure is provided and supported byRicoh under one consolidated MDS solution. The results ofsuccessfully managing the print infrastructure in this wayinclude substantial and rapid cost savings as well as helpingto reduce the environmental impact of the business.

It is estimated that there has been in excess of 50 percentcost reduction in both colour and black & white cost perpage. This is achieved through the ‘cost ratio’ of channellingprint to the most cost effective device and the ‘people ratio’of increasing the numbers of staff per printer, thus achievinggreater business efficiency. NBS also has accuratemanagement information and high visibility of IT assets,which helps to ensure quality as well as continuousimprovement across the estate. For example, with suchimproved visibility NBS has been able to seize onopportunities to improve non intervention printing fromhost mainframe systems. They have also been able toleverage scanning capabilities by restructuring workflowsand eliminate wastage.

Gent concludes “IT’s role is to be a facilitator to the businessnot an enforcer of policy, but the new way of working hasgone down well with staff straight away. I think they can seethat with fewer devices and alternatives to print like scan-to-email, we are improving our way of working and doing ourbit for the environment.”

Indeed, Ricoh has even implemented a toner return initiativewhere they take back old cartridges for remanufacture orsafe disposal, before making a donation to ‘Brave Hearts ofthe North East’ – a local charity that recognises and rewardsthe bravery of children in the area.

Case Study Newcastle Building Society

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“What Ricoh and NBS are essentially doing with this MDS solution is streamliningthe way people manage, print and distribute documents across the business. The combination of Equitrac and RVE provides us with management information on all activity, including volumes and print costs by authorised user. This in turn enables NBS to cross charge for third party businesses including numerous other UK finance institutions that use our services.”

Simon Gent, IT Support Services Manager, Newcastle Building Society

Ricoh Solution/Products• Multifunction Products • Printers• Virtual Engineer • Equitrac