A few months ago, I interviewed LRS Vice President John Runions about one of our recent service offerings. The LRS Managed Services solution appeals to organizations looking for a way to offload the installation, configuration, management, and day-to-day support tasks and infrastructure related to business-critical printing. This has been especially popular with customers migrating to SAP S/4HANA and other Cloud-based business applications for a simple reason: they get all the benefits of the proven LRS solution with minimal effort and expense.
But what about organizations for which a fully Cloud-based print management infrastructure is neither feasible nor desired? Many companies prefer to run their EMR, CRM, HR, and other enterprise applications on-premise and have the personnel to maintain these systems. Fewer, however, have the manpower and expertise to quickly stand up a scalable output management system to deliver critical business documents in a reliable and secure manner.
Solution: LRS Extended Engineering Services
To meet this market requirement, we have developed our LRS Extended Engineering solution. This new service offering gives customers access to our highly experienced document experts for a fixed period and a fixed rate. Our teams help you get your output management environment up and running quickly and in accordance with best practices developed over more than three decades in the industry. Depending on your needs, our team can provide:
- Installation and configuration of LRS solutions in production, test, QA, and other environments
- Customization and integration with line-of-business systems
- Creating/testing/deployment of filters, electronic forms, watermarks, etc.
- Training of administrators and end users in LRS product use and printing best practices
- Deployment of secure pull printing, scanning, and other specialized document systems
- System administration, troubleshooting, user support and assistance with architectural design
Extended Services in the Real World
So, who uses such a solution and what benefits do they achieve? The fact is that these customers come in many sizes and from a variety of industry sectors and geographical locations. One thing they have in common is a desire to reap the benefits of LRS software as quickly as possible.
For example, a global manufacturer and technology provider with over 110,000 employees in 100 countries was looking to streamline their worldwide output management infrastructure. Working with a managed print services (MPS) provider, they wanted to establish a vendor-agnostic output management solution to handle their SAP documents. Their new system was designed to provide flexibility with respect to print hardware and integration with key business applications.
The MPS provider worked to update the customer’s worldwide device fleet, engaging LRS’s Extended Engineering Services team to assist with implementation/configuration and provide “run and maintain” services during the first 12 months of the MPS agreement. Working quickly, our team of experts deployed and configured the LRS software and helped them migrate existing electronic forms into a format that would print on a greater variety of output devices. This eased the customer’s transition to the new output infrastructure and allowed the MPS provider to focus on the hardware-related aspects of the environment.
Extended Services in Healthcare
A 15,000-employee healthcare provider in the southeastern U.S. was in the process of merging two regional medical groups under one corporate umbrella. Each of these separate entities had been running a different Electronical Medical Record (EMR) solution, which they would need to continue supporting until the IT department could standardize on a single solution.
From an IT perspective, two things quickly became apparent: first, there was a lot of redundant infrastructure in place that had been needed to support the separate EMR systems. While this represented a challenge, it was also a potential source of cost savings. The other was the impact of resource constraints -- monetary and human – brought about by the merger.
Both EMR systems required a reliable method of managing and securely distributing critical healthcare documents around the organization. Choosing a single output management solution would eliminate a great deal of cost and complexity. The hospital chose LRS software for its proven scalability and certified, documented interfaces to the EMR solutions in use, but they needed help to implement the LRS software in a timely manner.
LRS Extended Engineering Services staff was brought on board to help the combined organization quickly transition from their outdated print management solution and begin to standardize their printer fleets, device definitions, print security, and output-related processes. From the customer’s perspective, LRS’ “turnkey solution approach” allowed them to focus their own IT resources on the EMR consolidation instead of spending time, money, and manpower on document-related tasks.
The LRS Extended Engineering team not only provided a fully integrated healthcare printing solution, but they helped the customer implement pull printing across the IT landscape and offer secure printing from mobile devices. Better yet, this expertise was available within a predictable timeframe and personnel cost level. The moral of these stories? The next time you consider postponing improvements to your output management environment due to lack of IT resources or in-house print expertise, be sure to contact LRS. Our Extended Services staff is here to help.