A global telecommunications provider was under great financial pressure to reduce operating costs. Both their procurement and internal global print service department worked with an external service provider to explore how they could achieve maximum cost savings. The ser-vice provider had identified and proposed upgrading to a new version of the existing workplace print management solution. This would enable serverless pull print, allowing the customer to remove costly Windows print servers from all key locations.

There was one issue with this proposed cost saving solution; SAP printing was in the mix. The service provider was not in a position to remove the software used to manage and control printing from SAP, as they could not offer a suitable replacement. The existing workplace print management solution could not manage printing from SAP applications. Resolving this would require the customer to set up a separate print environment with a host of distributed Linux servers — along with adding significant resources and skills. There would be complexity and costs involved in supporting these two completely separate print environments.

LRS offered a very simple solution to the customer: establish one single global platform to manage both print environments. The service provider recognized the cost saving opportunity and provided the customer with a revised operational cost model that replaced the two existing, separate print solutions with the LRS VPSX Enterprise solution.

In addition to managing both SAP and Windows printing, the customer had some other key requirements. For example, the customer ran a highly sensitive organization and confidentiality was a top concern. They wanted all print jobs to be submitted via secure pull print, with all data traffic being encrypted throughout the print process.

They also needed to continue to print in the event of a network outage, (which was common for some of their office locations). However, they wanted to do so without maintaining a remote print server infrastructure. LRS offered a capability which allowed printing to continue during network outages, and required no print servers at the remote site.

The LRS offering was chosen after it demonstrated it could support both Windows and SAP application printing. Detailed pre-implementation project documents for both the Windows and SAP environments provided the foundation for creating the project and its delivery activities.

LRS worked closely with the service provider to establish an off-site print management capability with a single point of contact. This configuration is able to fully support the customer’s global operations 24/7/365, including the tight SLA’s required for business-critical SAP print.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Best in class, device vendor-agnostic Managed Print Infrastructure.
• Centralized end-to end management of all print requirements.
• Consolidation of print environment footprint across all components (HW, SW, Operations etc.) leading to significant TCO reduction (23%). Flexibility in choosing multiple vendors, as required, to benefit technical requirements and geographical location limitations.
• Single point of contact for end users.
• Speed of transformation and limited end user impact.
• Replace two existing print management solutions by a single solution.

KEY DELIVERABLES

• Serverless pull print and centralized management of all Windows print queues.
• Centralized SAP print delivery and print queue management. Automated monitoring of critical events.
• SAP pull print enablement and general mobility enablement.
• Encryption of print jobs ‘in motion’.
• Global enterprise wide usage reporting, accounting and audit.

Learn how LRS® solutions can add value to your print services offerings. Visit LRSOutputManagement.com to learn more.