Customer: Kagome Australia
Country: AUS
Industry: Agriculture
Kagome is Australia’s largest tomato processing company, delivering high quality tomato-based products since 1996. They grow, harvest and process tomatoes in Echuca, Victoria, and work hard to deliver a quality product to the supermarket shelves of Australia and the world.
Kagome have 70 permanent staff, as well as seasonal staff who work in the factories and on the farms. The majority of their IT infrastructure is located at their main office, although they do have a few small locations with technology, including printers.
THE AGENT
The Southern Cross Office Equipment (SCOE) Group is a long-standing provider of Toshiba products and services.
SCOE are locally owned and operated companies, in both Shepparton and Bendigo. SCOE has been servicing the Bendigo region for 16 years and the Shepparton region for more than 3 years.
THE CHALLENGE
“We chose to go ahead with the Toshiba solution proposed by SCOE because of the immediate benefits it would provide our business. They were the only provider we were engaged with who had shown initiative in trying to improve our print infrastructure and reduce ongoing costs,”
– Matthew Beasley, General Manager of Finance and IT at Kagome.
Like so many businesses, Kagome’s print fleet consisted of multiple brands and models of printers and multifunction devices, managed by a range of providers. The variation in contracts, machine ages and costs associated made for an inefficient arrangement. Kagome also had a growing requirement for product label printers, and were specifically seeking a solution that would allow for flexibility of design.
Kagome had an existing relationship with SCOE, who had been supplying some of their printers. SCOE offered to conduct an audit of the current print environment at Kagome and present a proposal for a fully managed service, encompassing all of their print requirements across the business.
“As an existing service provider, SCOE were proactive in offering an audit of our complete print environment in order to put together a proposal for a managed service solution,” said Matthew Beasley, General Manager of Finance and IT at Kagome.
Kagome agreed to the audit, as they could see the potential cost and continuity of service benefits that a manage service would offer.
“The audit process gave us details of volumes for each machine in our fleet. Although it was the first time we had an in-depth look at our fleet usage, I was not surprise by what the SCOE team discovered through that process. It confirmed my suspicion that we could do things in a more efficient and cost effective manner. It was good to get the numbers to support that gut feeling,” said Matthew.
The proposal from SCOE would consolidate Kagome’s print fleet, provide an update in technology and functionality through Toshiba products, including label printers which would allow the required flexibility of design, and promised to save ongoing expenditure through a single, fixed monthly invoice for all hardware, software, consumables, service and support.
“We chose to go ahead with the Toshiba solution proposed by SCOE because of the immediate benefits it would provide our business. They were the only provider we were engaged with who had shown initiative in trying to improve our print infrastructure and reduce ongoing costs,” said Matthew.
THE TRANSITION
The SCOE team worked to change over all relevant devices, network the entire fleet and put the management software in place to ensure the solution was fully functional.
“The changeover went smoothly. SCOE were diligent about ironing out any minor issues that came up in the early days to get us operating to our satisfaction,” said Matthew.
The SCOE team also provided training to ensure staff could get the most out of the new Toshiba devices.
“Our team was generally happy with the change. They appreciated having an efficiently working print fleet and the added functionality provided by the new technology,” said Matthew.
THE RESULTS
Kagome has been able to reduce expenditure relating to their print devices through the consolidation of their fleet to one service provider, reduced toner use and a reduction in service requirements. They have also experienced streamlined service and billing through the managed service.
“A managed service through SCOE means that we have just one point of contact for service and support and just one invoice to deal with,” said Matthew.
The update in technology has been well received by all staff, and has given the organisation the tools they need to run the business efficiently.
“As all of the printers and MFDs are new and regularly serviced, we have seen a reduction in issues with the individual machines, and the fleet is now networked, so we also have the flexibility to print to any chosen device. The label printers give us the ability to use software to customise the design of our product labels, something that was really important to our business,” said Matthew.
Paper saving software was also part of the solution provided to Kagome, but they have opted out of this at this time. SCOE were able to switch this off easily on request.
“We did go down the path of putting paper saving software in place but our organisation wasn’t quite ready for that level of constraint in our print environment. Although while in place it did reduce our overall paper use, along with other benefits such as privacy, we decide to take it out of the equation for now and can reinstate it at a later date when we feel our business is ready for it,” said Matthew.
Servicing and consumables ordering is automated through software, reducing the burden on administrators to monitor and order stock.
“Software monitors stock levels for toner and automates ordering to ensure we always have one on hand for each of our machines. Servicing has been seamless and we are happy with the response times from SCOE when we need to report any issues,” said Matthew.
THE OUTLOOK
Managed services provided by SCOE and Toshiba allow for ongoing review and optimisation of the print environment. This gives Kagome the confidence that SCOE will be able to continue to support their needs.
“We have found SCOE to be a good business partner, who does the job that they say they are going to. They are certainly a capable provider and we are happy with the technology provided by Toshiba. Together they are meeting all of our needs and I envision us staying with our current arrangement for years to come,” concluded Matthew.
Southern Cross Office Equipment
13 Contempo Court
Bendigo East. VIC 3551 Australia
Telephone
(03) 5440 7777
Fax
(03) 5440 7788
Website
www.scoe.com.au
Kagome Australia Pty Ltd
54 Cornelia Creek Rd
Echuca. VIC 3564 Australia
Telephone
(03) 5482 0700
Fax
(03) 5482 0701
Website
www.kagome.com.au
Toshiba (Australia) Pty Ltd
1 Eden Park Drive
Macquarie Park NSW 2113
Telephone
(02) 9887 6000
Fax
(02) 9815 6274
Website
www.toshiba-business.com.au
Download Kagome Case Study
