Croydon College, one of the largest providers of Further and Higher Education to students in and around the South East of England, is to save £500,000 in IT costs over a five year period working with Ricoh. The college will consolidate IT and print management operations to free up staff time and reduce overheads.
Previously, the college faced continuing challenges to ensure it delivered value for money across its IT and print services functions. The College was already well underway with a programme to install multifunction products (MFPs) around the campus and the College wanted to look at how it could make its central print function more cost effective.
The central print room equipment was getting old, the existing contract was coming to an end and overall print costs were too high. In one year, print costs had doubled. The College put out a tender to improve the central print room service, which was won by Ricoh.
By installing the Ricoh Production Print solution and replacing the existing equipment in the print room, the College estimates it will save as much as £500,000 over five years. The cost saving is being achieved because the Ricoh solution has been designed especially for an education environment and because the equipment is highly efficient with the cost per click less expensive. Also, the fact that the Ricoh equipment integrates so easily with existing print systems makes it more cost effective.
The College was already using print management software to manage its network of satellite MFPs and the Ricoh solution was able to integrate easily with this so that the College would not waste existing investment.
"Croydon College has a strong commitment to strengthen and improve the learner experience through the provision of a responsive IT services. Although information is going digital, having a physical document handout in a classroom does supplement the learning process," said Mark Watson, Services Manager at Croydon College.
"Pupils have different styles of learning – some visual, some hands on and some need paper-based information. So the value for money and efficiencies we've achieved with the Ricoh print solution play a key role in education at Croydon College. In fact, lecturers often make the print room their first port of call in the morning to collect their handouts for the day," concluded Watson.
The new system will also free-up staff time, ensuring teachers are able to spend more time teaching instead of managing and printing documents.
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