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Information is king
Machines for the job
Shocking results
The Canon Difference
"Our accountants and the Australian Taxation Office say that we can now keep records electronically, rather than paper form. We're slowly moving all our archived paper into an electronic format and you can imagine the storage space this is starting to save us, rather than having everything in boxes."
? Martin Edwards, Network Administrator, Shock Records
Shock, Australia's largest independent music distributor & Australian music exporter, started 13 years ago in a tiny terrace in suburban Victoria. It now employs 140+ staff in five state offices and within Australia it exclusively licenses, markets & distributes CDs from over 100 international record labels. These names include top imprints Koch, Epitaph, Beggars Banquet, Deathrow, Psychopathic, D3, Blackground, React, Hed Kandi, Global Underground and Sanctuary.
Information is king
For a business like Shock, keeping its staff, associates and record stores across the country up to date with all the latest information relating to the music business is a time-consuming, yet business-critical, undertaking.
One of the most popular ways to reach sites around the country - particularly record stores that might not have an online PC on the premises - remains the fax machine.
For this reason, when it was decided that Shock should update its office equipment across the country, the company looked at multi-functional digital devices to meet the needs of both office printing and faxing. In some cases, colour printing could also augment such abilities.
"Our printing needs are quite varied," said Martin Edwards, Network Administrator at Shock Records. "We have lots of departments across the business - the majority of which need to print extensively in black & white. We also use a colour machine in our Melbourne office for 'one-sheeters' which are used in marketing and advertising."
Machines for the job
After speaking to Canon about its requirements, Shock decided to upgrade the printing and faxing facilities of all its Australian locations.
The majority of Shock's new printing fleet - some 18 machines in all - is comprised of imageRUNNER iR1610 and iR2200i. Both are black & white devices, the iR1610 delivers reproduction of 16 (A4) pages per minute in addition to standard Super G3 fax capabilities with 33.6 kbps high-speed modem, and an optional feature which allows transmission of fax documents from a networked computer. The iR2200i is a 22 page-per-minute network printer/copier with both network scanning and Super G3 fax capabilities in addition to 'Universal Send' technology which positions the iR2200i as a central communications hub.
For its largest offices in Melbourne and Sydney, Shock also elected to add an imageRUNNER iR6000 and iR C3200 to the fleet. The iR6000 produces 60 (A4) pages per minute and, combined with a standard document feeder and trayless duplexing, accelerates the completion of any print, copy or scan job. Like the other imageRUNNER devices, the iR C3200 produces documents at a rate of 32ppm (A4), however, this is in both black & white and full colour, without any compromise in speed between the two.
The philosophy behind Shock's selection of devices is that the smaller black & white only machines such as the iR1610 and iR2200i are both capable of serving the smaller offices and departments where they are installed, in addition to providing a faxing facility. A larger machine such as the iR6000 was installed to provide high-volume black & white, whilst the iR C3200 has brought its own benefits to the business - including the ability to produce colour marketing material in-house.
Shocking results
While many of the black & white devices installed at Shock locations are used for routine office printing, it's the iR C3200 which has begun to emerge as a star performer for the business. According to Mr Edwards, it's not uncommon for the business to be saving up to $800 a day by using the device to create colour documents internally, rather than outsourcing them.
An unanticipated, yet not unwelcome advantage which has emerged through the use of Canon multifunction devices is in the realm of storage. Shock staff can now simply scan documents directly to network drives - which has provided a great bonus in the financial area.
"Our accountants and the Australian Taxation Office say that we can now keep records electronically, rather than paper form," said Mr Edwards. "We're slowly moving all our archived paper into an electronic format and you can imagine the storage space this is starting to save us, rather than having everything in boxes."
The Canon Difference
According to Mr Edwards, staff have taken to using all varieties of Canon devices through a general ease of use across the range. Staff have actually commented on the user-friendly functionality of the machines to Mr Edwards, and within weeks of being installed, all staff were comfortable with using the devices in the day to day office environment.
"Dealing with Canon has been excellent," said Mr Edwards. "Even if you take something as simple as a Melbourne office wanting to distribute 100 faxes in Sydney, the ease with which we can send from the Melbourne office's machine to the device in the Sydney office - for distribution at local call rates - the solution has surpassed our expectations and is serving us well."
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