Managed Print Services

Bank Saint Petersburg is the largest bank in Russia's North-West region. The bank was set up in 1990 and in recent years has become an integral part of the finance and economic sector of Russia's North-West region. As at 1st October 2017, the bank provides services to 1,890,000 private individuals and 51,000 companies in 66 offices in Saint Petersburg, the Leningrad Oblast region, Moscow and Kaliningrad, including a representative office in Novosibirsk. In asset terms, it is the 18th largest Russian bank (according to data supplied by the Interfax rating agency).

Optimisation and outsourcing of printing 

An end-to-end solution for printing optimisation involves three phases: In the first phase of the consultancy, Konica Minolta analyses the client's existing printing infra­structure in order to devise an optimal solution appropriate to the company's business tasks. The implementation and 

management phases follow the consulting phase. 

Project tasks 

The basic aim of the project was to reduce the costs of servicing the printing devices, reduce the cost of printing documents and improve the fail-safe operation of the printing service. Particular attention was paid to the requirement for the printing infrastructure to comply with the bank's internal security standards. 

Stages of the project 

Consulting 

Konica Minolta specialists conducted a pre-project audit and analysed the existing printing infrastructure at the bank's head office. The audit results helped them understand the bank's printing and document workflow needs and design an opti­misation project, including a proposal to reduce the number of printing devices and replace them with higher-performing models. They also proposed the implementation of the YSoft SafeQ solution to prevent unauthorised access to printing devices and tighten control of the costs of document printing.

Implementation 

They started the pilot project implementation in the bank's front office, i.e. in the business units responsible for working directly with clients, where printing quality requirements are at their highest. Following successful implementation in the bank's front office, the solution was scaled up for the bank's back-office units. As part of the pilot project, Konica Minolta supplied 340 printing devices of various sizes, from personal devices all the way up to high-speed A3 systems, and imple­mented the YSoft SafeQ software and hardware solution for controlling and managing print jobs. 

Management 

Konica Minolta provides continuous remote monitoring of all printing devices. A dedicated customer-support manager, who utilises specialists from other Konica Minolta departments and keeps track of request turnaround times, has responsibility for resolving all matters related to printing infrastructure operations. 

Project outcomes 

As a result of the infrastructure optimisation and transition to an outsourced model, it has been possible to: 

• Transfer printing costs from capital expenditure to opera­tional expenditure; 
• Lower the net cost of printing by: 
• Reducing the number of monochrome printing devices by 43%, and colour devices by 50% 
• Increasing the proportion of more cost-effective A3 devices from 7% to 30% 
• Controlling and recording all print and copying jobs 
• Implement a transparent reporting system based on the YSoft SafeQ solution. 

Printing infrastructure security is provided by YSoft SafeQ, which is a software solution that controls access to printing devices by means of smart card authorisation for office staff. 

Further project development plans 

The bank plans to outsource printing for its entire branch network of about 60 offices.

We understand the cost-effectiveness of the outsourcing model and implement it in areas where we discern an objective advantage for the business. We took the decision to outsource printing several years ago, and it's worth mention¬ing that, out of all the global printing technology vendors, only Konica Minolta was able to offer us terms suited to our tasks and the service contract requirements

Nikolai Chesnokov

Deputy Head of the Information Technology Directorate, Bank Saint Petersburg