CUSTOM FEATURE

RICOH INDIA

CASE STUDY

Ricoh Helps

Siemens Drive Efficiency

and Sustainability
How do you take your average enterprise printing set up and then lower
costs by half, save over Rs 40 lakh a year, and ensure a 98 percent
uptime? Ask Siemens and Ricoh.

iemens, a world-class solution

provider in the engineering and
manufacturing segment, plays a key
role in Indias quest for developing modern
infrastructure. As a company, Siemens is
committed to drive causes which maximize
value and minimize costs. But thats not
always easy when the company operates
more than 50 offices in 25 cities and
has to assimilate additional people and
infrastructure after strategic acquisitions.
Tackling Cost Challenges

Siemens, a Rs 12,000 crore company, was

looking at scaling down its overall costs and
managing core operations more effectively.
Satish Kotgire, head IT infrastructure,
Siemens, chose to strategically outsource
non-core, yet vital areas of the companys
IT and business processes.
His team identified the opportunity to lower
overhead costs in the companys document
and output management processes. We
wanted to centralize our IT spending
for printers, copiers, consumables, and
production sites with the goal of reducing
operational and maintenance costs. This
would eventually improve our cost structures
related to document output, says Kotgire.

CUSTOM CASE STUDY

Siemens is also committed to a multi-faceted

environmental sustainability plan consisting
of staff education, a reduction of solid waste,
and decreased energy consumption and
greenhouse gases. Therefore, Kotgire and

his team chose to implement a solution

that could support Siemens environmental
sustainability goals.
The task of managing equipment,
printing and distribution, billing, reporting

and meeting the needs of over 14,000

employees was daunting, and with no
central means of managing overall costs.
Thats why Siemens chose to partner with
Ricoh. We looked to Ricoh to leverage
its expertise, experience and global
presence to support us, says Kotgire.
Controlling Output Costs

Kotgire began by establishing a baseline.

The first step was to make a thorough
assessment of our office infrastructure.
That revealed a surplus of under-utilized
devices, says Kotgire.
Kotgires team and Ricoh found that
there was a need to manage nearly
700 devices. This meant that we had
20 employees, on average, to each
device. Approximately 26 percent of
these devices were either out-of-date or
malfunctioning, and were responsible for
excessive print costs, says Kotgire.
His team also discovered that there
was a lack of asset management and cost
control for printers, supplies, and the
management of devices. Complicating
the situation was the fact that Siemens
had five or more vendors supplying print/
copy services with varying consumables,
support and billing. Ricoh recognized an
opportunity to optimize, rationalize and
provide standard technology platforms
to Siemens office environment after a
thorough study.
Improving Sustainability

Ricohs
technology, knowledge,
and process deliver
value to our business
units, cost savings to
IT, and the ability to reinvest those savings in
IT innovation.
Satish Kotgire

Head - IT Infrastructure,
Siemens

Kotgire decided to implement a centralized

program to shrink the companys total annual
document output costs. A large portion of
Siemens output fleet was replaced with

Ricoh MFDs, a newer, more cost-effective,

and more energy-efficient technology
approach to document management.
Siemens, with the help of Ricoh, set
up an asset database to track, bill, and
report documents across India. It also
created an integrated printer and IT
help desk that logs and tracks all user
inquiries and service calls.
Ricoh is also helping Siemens to
achieve its sustainability goals by
introducing Ricohs new Quick Start
Up (QSU) technology, an energy
saving methodology with PxP toner
multifunction devices that cause 25
percent less waste than typical laser
printers. Ricoh diligently recycles toner
cartridges according to its enterprise
sustainability guidelines.
In addition, Ricoh ensured that doublesided (duplex) print is a default feature on
all its devices. We have now established
an ongoing data-gathering process and
critical performance metrics through
quality tools, which will eventually
form a part of Siemens framework for
continuously improving the quality of our
customer service, says Kotgire.

Project ROI
55 percent decrease in average
cost per page
30 percent cost savings, that
translates to over Rs 42
lakh a year
98 percent equipment uptime
Improved employee-to-device
ratio by over 35 percent
Proactive monitoring of devices
Standardization simplifies overall
output environment, yet allows
for regional/local flexibility
Scalable, replicable global
solution
Centralized cost control
Improved regional application
and workflow

Efficient Service Delivery

Siemens was impressed with Ricohs

rapid implementation of equipment
and services right from Ricohs MDS
program. Kotgire was able to gain
complete control of output costs. We
achieved a 55 percent decrease in costs
per page, as we removed 250 output
devices and simultaneously increased
our employee-to device ratio by more
than 35 percent. This has enabled us

Remote Monitoring & Managed Print Services for Siemens

to achieve our financial and document

management goals to a high extent,
says Kotgire.
Overall, Ricoh has successfully
helped Siemens to save 30 percent in
costs, amounting to over Rs 42 lakh
a year. Siemens also experienced
a significant reduction in its asset
base and notable improvements in its
printing processes.
Siemens has now decided to
continually expand its relationship with
Ricoh by including other subsidiaries
into the plan. Using Ricohs proven
model, Siemens will continue to
control functions such as helpdesk,
break/fix,
supplies
management,
asset management, and proactive
device management for all Ricoh and
non-Ricoh devices in the companys
offices nationally.
Ricohs technology, knowledge, and
process deliver value to our business
units, cost savings to IT, and the
ability to re-invest those savings in IT
innovation, says Kotgire.

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