|
|
|
An outsourced printing environment
Waving goodbye to outsourcing
Results that speak for themselves
The iR C3200
Ray White Burwood's former model of black & white printing in-house and outsourced colour printing is "Going, Going Gone!" as Canon's new imageRUNNER iR C3200 moves in.
Ray White is an Australian family-owned business - and a household name in real estate with nearly 700 individual offices spread across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and South East Asia. Collectively, these offices sell 180,000 properties every year with an annual sales turnover last year of $15 billion.
"We wanted to streamline our office procedures to the point where we could produce our own marketing material instead of outsourcing it to the local print shop. Essentially, making our own brochures and other material that we had not been able to create in-house before."
- Les Weller, Business Manager, Ray White (Burwood, Victoria)
An outsourced printing environment
The real estate industry is never static. Day after day, week after week, properties are sold and new ones listed in their place. For a real estate agent, the demand for up-to-date realtors, price guides, listings in the front window and other printed material to assist customers is an ongoing challenge.
The busy Ray White real estate franchise in Burwood, Victoria, previously outsourced material to a print shop, which then produced the majority of the franchise's printed material. Only very simple black & white content would be created in-house by Ray White staff, using a faithful analogue Canon copier.
Waving goodbye to outsourcing
Due to its existing relationship with Canon, Ray White Burwood was in a position to evaluate Canon's new imageRUNNER iR C3200 - a powerful new networked digital multifunction office device - as it came onto the market in April 2003.
According to Les Weller, Business Manager at Ray White Burwood, his Canon account representative introduced the iR C3200 to him and demonstrated its specific benefits to their business.
"Our Canon rep explained the iR C3200 to us in a way we could understand - in simple English," said Mr Weller. "She took us through the benefits of the machine, such as its ability to print colour brochures on a variety of paper stocks."
In all, it took Mr Weller and the staff at Ray White Burwood less than a fortnight to decide to purchase the iR C3200 and thus bring its printing back in to the organisation, rather than sending it to the local copy shop.
"The key benefit we saw in the iR C3200 was its ability to help us streamline the business by keeping everything in-house and thereby cut costs significantly - that was critical," said Mr Weller. "If we run out of brochures, for example, all we have to do is call up the document, push a button and out prints another supply."
Results that speak for themselves
Staff at Ray White Burwood have taken to using the iR C3200 to create marketing brochures for properties, lists and window display cards, as well as proofing advertising bound for the local newspaper.
"One of the main things we print on the device is an A4 booklet on all the properties we have available," said Mr Weller. "We also make individual property brochures in full colour so buyers can have a closer look at any property we have on our books. We do that on the Canon for every property we list."
The speed of the iR C3200 also assists staff in meeting their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For instance, as soon as the branch receives digital photos of a property it's going to list, it can print the related brochures immediately - instead of waiting a week, which is the time it was taking to outsource print work.
The multifunction device has even helped salespeople list more properties, as some vendors appreciate the agency's ability to print unlimited brochures for their property, instead of re-ordering them from a print shop at a further cost and delay to the sale.
The iR C3200's ability to print to thicker paper also shines when Mr Weller and his staff create individual property brochures, using heavier stock to enhance their quality and overall presentation.
Staff at Ray White Burwood have all commented favourably to Mr Weller on how happy they are with the iR C3200 and Canon's innovative purchasing solutions have also assisted Ray White Burwood in its ownership of the new device.
"The contract factors in the costs of keeping the iR C3200 running, such as the toner cartridges and servicing," said Mr Weller. "That's a great feature. Already we can see that the machine is costing us far less than outsourcing this work to a print shop."
"Being one of the first businesses in Australia to use the iR C3200 is quite exciting. The machine has certainly proven itself through the colour work we do, and the rest of its features. It will definitely open new doors for us as we learn how to build our business around features such as Universal Send."
Universal Send transforms the device into a digital communications hub, setting the standard for how information is communicated in today's workplace. Universal Send-capable devices use corporate networks and the Internet to manage, print and share documents. It can distribute both hard and soft copy information to multiple destinations and in different formats in one simple operation and from the same device. For example, documents can be scanned and sent directly from the device via e-mail as TIFF, MTIFF or PDF files, or sent as an Internet Fax - all in one simple operation. They can also be saved on a local or networked file server or to a corporate database.
Mr Weller believes that sales people are getting what they need out of the machine as they are now producing more marketing reports at a higher standard and speed than ever before. As a result, first-rate brochures and window cards are now always available to buyers.
The iR C3200
Incorporating local R&D from Canon Information Research Systems Australia (CISRA), the iR C3200 enables users to print, scan and copy in full colour, quickly, cost-effectively and at the same speed as black-and-white. Its value as the ultimate business tool is cemented by Canon's unique Universal Send functionality - which enables users to simultaneously scan and distribute full-colour documents via e-mail, fax, internet fax and local networks.
Since its introduction in April 2003, the iR C3200 has been a sales success for Canon, with demand constantly outstripping supply. Described as "the most significant device for the office environment, from any vendor, since the introduction of colour printers to the corporate market," the machine is only just starting to earn its reputation in offices around Australia for its overall quality, performance, features and the way in which it is driving down the cost of colour printing in the office.
|
|
 |
|
