Case Study: Public Utility Company

• Implemented Intelligent Delivery Services for digital mailroom automation and delivery via Ricoh’s cloud-based Intelligent Business Platform (IBP)

• Deployed parcel, IT lockers and vending lockers for secured retrieval

• Brought on a Ricoh change management consultant to help with transitions

• Initiated better practices for more sustainable courier services and eco-friendly vehicles

• Expanded business support services for equipment and special projects

• Utilized a Ricoh analyst to cost-optimize printers, devices and shipping

With our decade-long partnership providing both on-site and off-site support in various parts of the company, Ricoh’s experience led to a deep understanding of our client’s business operations. This enabled Ricoh to develop and present intuitive, customized solutions to help meet the customer’s goals by taking advantage of business process outsourcing benefits.

From cubbies and sorting to digital mail: Ricoh’s Intelligent Delivery Services enabled a cloud-based, digital mailroom, which included automated scan, capture and delivery workflows, allowing employees to securely access their inbound mail from anywhere. Most business units adopted automated processing, which made a big impact on departments like accounts payable.

New courier services drive sustainability: “With Ricoh, we gradually reduced our courier delivery time from 5 days to 1 day due to our Intelligent Delivery Services and new lockers, which is amazing,” said the Category Manager at the Public Utility Company. The lockers also require lots of logistics and tracking, which Ricoh now handles.

Sustainability is an important topic and the company continues to look at ways to reduce their carbon footprint and lower emissions. In fact, they were able to lower their mileage by 20% and calculated that out of all their drive miles, about 72% were considered “green miles” with no emissions. There are about 34 different couriers, who drive about 60,000 miles per month (approximately 97,000 km).

Printer reduction impacts the bottom line: The Ricoh team was brought in to assess and optimize usage and costs for its hundreds of printers. “Ricoh brought in an analyst and was instrumental in doing the right sizing for us and we were able to eliminate about 100 printers, which saves us about US$10,000 per month. It was substantial,” stated the Category Manager. Additionally, the company noted that on-site Ricoh resources at the print center would go the extra mile and come up with ideas, mock-ups, and other solutions to enhance customer service and experience.

Simplified and easy business processes: The Ricoh team set up an internal SharePoint site to simplify the process of adding to projects or services. “With Ricoh in-house, it’s so easy to add a service order rather than having to go through a new contract with a new provider and getting all those signatures,” commented the Enterprise Administrator at the Public Utility Company.

Ricoh also manages a variety of business initiatives and services, such as insurance compliance and contracts. “The support here has been great,” said the Category Manager. “Any kind of support functions are outsourced to Ricoh and that’s a good thing in my book.” The team also complimented the call centre and noted that while it may move to digital in the future, its customers appreciate talking to a human versus an automated system. “For example, if a customer calls about their electricity or gas bill, the operators do a great job of triaging those calls and routing them to the correct departments. They are also great at detecting and weeding out suspicious or malicious callers that are spam.”