EuroHold is a leading Bulgarian firm in the finance and insurance sectors with operations across the Balkans focused on non-banking financial services and asset management, leasing and sales of new cars, and general insurance services. The company was founded in 1995 and has operated since 2006 under the name EuroHold Bulgaria AD.
The holding structure of EuroHold includes many companies with enormous document workflow and with different printing environments, needs, suppliers, processes and organisations. Therefore, centralisation and harmonisation of all the processes is necessary. Moreover, there is also a need for a holistic approach to printing and its management on a holding level for all the companies involved. Throughout the company, there is a monthly print volume of 180,000 A4 pages, which are conducted by 219 printing devices at 550 PC working stations.
EuroHold has no clear strategy for device management. Maintenance is performed when required and consumables are ordered when needed from several suppliers for each company in the holding firm. The customer also needs an accounting solution that could report all the expenses related to document production per single user and per different company or cost centre.
With the support of Konica Minolta, EuroHold Bulgaria was able to optimise its printing processes as well as its costs in daily business significantly. Based on the recommendation of Konica Minolta, the company successfully centralised management processes across their holdings and outsourced activities with low added value for the customer organisation. To guarantee flexible and continuous development, Konica Minolta emphasised an IT environment entirely adapted to the individual needs and requirements of the company. It includes, among other novel measures, an improved monitoring system of all relevant processes, users, devices and suppliers.
Without a doubt, a centralised project like this is the right solution to optimising the business processes in the holding. The improved accounting of printing usage has an additional disciplining effect and supports the idea of the management of the holding for clear and transparent business processes
Dimitar Dimitrov
Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Konica Minolta started by capturing and analysing the situation to establish a project schedule. The solution concept is based on full outsourcing and centralisation of print management across all companies in the holding firm to optimise the daily workflow. It allows for a substantial increase of process and cost efficiency and includes the total renewal of hardware infrastructure, e.g., by positioning 2 or 3 central MFDs on each floor with access control replacing all the single-function old desktop devices.
With the new solution, the customer is free of all concerns related to printing – the implementation of software for remote monitoring of all devices allows for proactive maintenance, automatic delivery of consumables and remote counter reading. The solution also allows for full accounting and control of printing per single user and for the possibility of enforcing user policies and restrictions. Furthermore, a portal to monitor Konica Minolta’s service maintenance is included. Thus, the customer can track in real time every service visit and consumable delivery and receive detailed statistics of reaction and resolution time as well as SLA fulfilment.
Konica Minolta delivered 38 pre-configured multifunctional devices as well as various intelligent software solutions such as YSoft SafeQ, Printfleet and the portal eCON. All companies in the holding firm are connected in one network and users have access to all devices. The entire system is managed by a central server, where the software SafeQ, which controls and accounts for printing, copying and scanning, is installed. The software is integrated with the customer’s Active Directory, which allows for easy management of users and devices.
The use of access control terminals on the MFDs also allows users to take advantage of “follow-me” printing with their identification cards on any device in the building. The software Printfleet ensures the remote monitoring of the devices. Thanks to this integration along with Konica Minolta’s ERP system, the process of proactive maintenance and consumables delivery is fully automated.
With the OPS implementation of Konica Minolta, EuroHold Bulgaria successfully centralised and outsourced its print management. It improved the efficiency of all related processes as well as the efficiency of the entire holding firm and the coordination among its companies. Thanks to Konica Minolta, EuroHold Bulgaria could decrease the number of devices for printing, copying, scanning and faxing by approximately 83%. Additionally, the company enhanced their cost efficiency by implementing devices with much lower cost per print. The estimated decrease in the number of printed pages is at least 15%.
All employees of the Holding are currently using the full functionality of the multifunctional devices, which is a great improvement over the previous devices. The initial ‘fear’ of the unknown was easily overcome after the user training sessions and the provision of short manuals covering the main functionalities of the devices
Veselin Dimitrov
System Administrator