Client Profile

Functional Area: Marketing & Collateral Management Areas
Vertical Market: Large-Tier Financial Company
Project Description: Paperless Printing Strategy Evaluation
Technology: Hitachi Digitial Printers, Scanners, Xeror Digital Solutions

Business Challenge

A Financial Co., which supplies credit cards for VISA, Diner’s Club, MasterCard, and many other businesses, wanted to eliminate over 500 dot matrix printers from their various branches. The printers were of an older technology, expensive to run and maintain, and in today’s need for green technology the need to reduce paper printing was a must.

Software Merchant was enlisted to match the products available with the necessities of the company with the objective “to provide the right information, in the right format, to the right person, at the right time”.

Solution Description

Software Merchant representatives familiar with the industry requirements and products being examined, were engaged to perform research and collect data on the current environment and needs of the company. Software Merchant worked together with the company’s Sales team to investigate the requirements and create a "Go-Green" paperless printing strategy.

After an in-depth review of the processes and interviews with the stakeholders on the project, Software Merchant was able to identify the challenges associated with the current system which would need to be addressed by the new strategy. Software Merchant determined the "Go-Green" paperless printing goals for this firm’s Sales team included:

• Streamlined Informational Printing into a document archival system
• Workflow solutions to enhance search capabilities and approval processes
• Cut operating costs while improving productivity
• Enhance companies overall go-green initiative

Software Merchant’s team investigated the histories and current standings of the delivering technologies and their producing companies. The reports listed the strengths and weaknesses of each product, and developed the history of that product within the client’s environment. Many technologies were examined from NAS storage devices to document imaging and archival systems. With Software Merchants expertise in development we were able to build our own Enterprise Workflow solution cutting down on the expenses of our client.

For this client we found the best infrastructure was to use a storage device coupled with the mid-range document and imaging archival system and a Software Merchant developed workflow solution. With these different technologies working together, we were able to meet all of the requirements of our client. We drastically reduced the operating costs of dot matrix printing while vastly improving the company’s productivity. The money being saved with this new enterprise solution will pay for the entire project after 2.5 years. After this time the company will be saving a substantial amount of time and money.

Having a "Go-Green" paperless printing strategy prior to implementation is one of the most important things a company can have. In the financial industry, the companies are under fierce competition to achieve and act on the data they collect. With the high expense of paper, ink and printer maintenance costs paperless printing is the instrument to successful data management.

Solution Architecture