As a respected accountancy firm that prides itself on providing astute financial and business advice to its clients, Gloucestershire firm Hazlewoods aims to
practice what it preaches when it comes to choosing cost-effective office
equipment. Hazlewoods Finance Partner Tony Flambard explains how office
equipment specialists Midshires helped the company gain control of its
document costs with a hardware solution from Kyocera Mita…

Hazlewoods is the largest independent firm of Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors in Gloucestershire, employing  more than 150 specialists with expertise in all areas of business advice, accountancy, financial planning and tax. During the last quarter of 2002 the company decided to address the challenge of document imaging and ensure that printing and copying resources were deployed in an effective manner across the business. Tony Flambard explains the background to the decision: "Our historic model centered around a range of HP printers to meet individual printing demands with little in the way of strategy as to size and location to deal with users needs efficiently. We also had Xerox photocopiers in each of our three offices dealing with standalone photocopying needs, and more recently we had introduced HP scanners to deal with the increasing need to scan documents for electronic use. This situation had developed over time as we added in
machinery to react to the advances made in technology and the price of delivery.

"During the last quarter of 2002 we recognised that the scattergun approach was not delivering the efficiency demanded by our users and nor were we making the most of the opportunities that modern equipment could provide. Given that our HP printer population was ageing and needed updating we decided to spend time researching a solution that could deliver key
benefits in efficiency, economy and productivity."

Project aims…

The first stage in the process was to determine the key benefits that the company wanted to achieve with the new deployment, which were as follows:

1. Improve user experience by installing machines in work areas which could allow them to print/copy/scan rather than
having to walk distances to isolated machines.
2. Speed up production times by installing faster machines.
3. Improve and simplify network maintenance and management of print and copy machines.
4. Minimise business interruption by establishing a maintenance agreement to service the machines.
5. Gain visibility of print costs through use of efficient networked machines.
6. Reduce training times by deploying a standard machine so that users need only be trained once on one machine rather
than several.
7. Create a clear strategy for the business in the print/copy/scan area.


"The improved efficiency frees up user time and IT support time and enables them to concentrate on proactively working for our clients rather than battling with the production process."

Tony Flambard
Hazlewoods Finance Partner

"We pre-configure the machines to the customer's specifications before delivering them, which reduces installation time. We also handle all maintenance calls, which relieves pressure on Hazlewoods' helpdesk, and if a user has a question about using the machines they know that they can call us and we will provide the necessary information straight away."

Emma Wooltorton
Account Manager, Midshires

Need more information? Visit: www.midshirecommunications.co.uk and www.kyoceramita.co.uk 



Once the scope of the project had been established, Hazlewoods needed to
determine how best to meet these needs and which business partner and
manufacturer was the most appropriate. The company had been approached by a representative from Midshires Communications Limited so Tony decided to offer the company the opportunity to present a solution. He was impressed by Midshires' comprehensive approach to the challenge: "In addition to numerous face to face meetings, provision of customer reference sites and visits to the Midshires showroom for full product demonstrations, the company also carried out a survey of all three of our offices at its own expense which provided data on existing machine deployment, usage levels and an estimate of current cost levels. This enabled us to review how we could structure our working practices to increase efficiency of both users' time and associated costs." With Hazlewoods keen to establish a common hardware platform and also gain control of document imaging costs, Midshires believed that Kyocera's range of printers and multifunction copiers could provide the answer. Kyocera machines use long life technology which delivers high reliability and low running costs. Furthermore, all Kyocera products use the same driver, which means that once a user has learned to use one machine, he or she is
equipped to use them all. Midshires demonstrated the functionality of
the products to Hazlewoods, and after comparing them with competitive products from Nashuatec, Xerox and HP, the company decided to follow Midshires' recommendation and adopt a Kyocera strategy throughout its offices.
Midshires installed eight KM-5035 multifunction devices which are
equipped with print, copy, fax and scan functionality, plus one FS- 9520DN 51 page per minute mono laser printer. For colour requirements Midshires installed two FS-C5016N colour laser printers which benefit from very low consumables costs.

Efficiency gains…
Since the installation of the Kyocera products, Hazlewoods has achieved improved efficiency in all of the areas that it had identified as previously problematic, as Tony Flambard explains: "Our print and copy costs have been dramatically reduced. It's difficult to quantify exactly, but savings of 35% would not be an exaggeration. By providing machines with increased speed and functionality directly to our workgroups we have reduced the amount of running around that users have to do to collect their print and copy jobs. "One of the key benefits of standardizing on one manufacturer has been the fact that toner cartridges are uniform to a greater extent. This means less time spent chasing best prices from differing suppliers for different cartridge sizes and also minimizes the amount of toner stock that we have to hold. Emma Wooltorton, Account Manager at Midshires explains how the company's approach takes the onus away from the customer when it comes to managing machines: "We pre-configure the machines to the customer's specifications before delivering them, which reduces installation time. We also handle all maintenance calls,
which relieves pressure on Hazlewoods' helpdesk, and if a user has a question about using the machines they know that they can call us and we will provide the necessary information straight away." Tony Flambard believes that the new printing and copying arrangements have had a positive impact on the service that Hazlewoods provides to its clients: "The improved efficiency frees up user time and IT support time and enables them to concentrate on proactively working for our clients rather than battling with the production process."

A fully managed solution…
Hazlewoods is still undergoing the process of transition towards a fully managed solution and will replace existing devices with Kyocera equivalents as they reach end of life. The company also aims to increase its use of colour printing as the cost of this reduces in future. As is the case with all financial organizations, Hazlewoods must ensure that it keeps easily accessible and accurate records of documents in its archives and to that end, the company plans to investigate the potential of using the Kyocera products in document
management and electronic archiving applications.

Working in partnership...
Tony Flambard believes that the key to the project's success has been the close working relationship between Hazlewoods, Midshires and Kyocera:
"Kyocera has provided impressive support for Midshires in resolving
any technical issues that we came up against. Similarly, Midshires
themselves have given us good service both in terms of timing and
polite and well motivated service staff. They have a good understanding of our needs and how we expect the business relationship to work and they haven't disappointed us."