Provide a brief description of the Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative
CNRL is one of the largest crude oil and natural gas producers in the world. The company has grown rapidly over the past several years through both internal expansion and through acquisition. These acquisitions ultimately resulted in a very disparate fleet of plotter and print devices across North America. This situation was creating significant frustration for the IT group in terms of managing the fleet….and significant dissatisfaction for the users due to printer downtime and lost user productivity. As a value-focused company, CNRL felt that (1) they were spending too much on printing and copying and (2) they were losing worker productivity due to the lack of reliability of these devices. Therefore, in 2009, CNRL selected LaserNetworks & their Cost Per Page Managed Print Service to help improve this obvious inefficiency. LaserNetworks deployed their proprietary LNWConnect software to analyzed the print behaviour of all copier, plotter and printer assets across the company. Once establishing a baseline, devices were re-deployed or retired in an effort to maximize device producitivty throughout the organization. The result was a 15% reduction in total assets. From an IT perspective, cleaning up the fleet and leveraging the software provided by LaserNetworks gave CNRL perfect information about device performance. The proactive nature of the support provided by LaserNetworks resulted in a 50% reduction in the number of printer-related calls to the Help Desk. It also improved user satisfaction. As the fleet performance improved, so did the satisfaction of Users. From a financial perspective, which was of major importance to CNRL, the company slashed their operating spend by almost 40%. In addition, the company significantly reduced capital spent on new hardware purchases, while at the same time, increasing fleet uptime to 99%. The overall solution provided CNRL with on-site hardware, software, and service support, the management of all printer related supplies, and the proven ability to recommend and implement solutions that minimized their costs while maximizing user productivity and satisfaction.
Describe what makes this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative original or innovative?
In terms of orignality, CNRL has locations everywhere…truly everywhere, with some only accessible by 4×4 truck. It was also a situation that brought together several different cultures (through acquisitions) and so to manage the complexities of a cost savings initiatives while also improving user satisfaction was an awesome outcome for CNRL.
Describe the improvement this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative made to the customer’s sales or revenues. What changed?
The cost reductions were both immediate and lasting. From an immediate perspective, CNRL cut their printing costs by 40% the day they signed with LaserNetworks. As the delpoyment rolled out, CNRL realized a significant reduction in capital spend on print devices. The company now has perfect knowledge of their printers and plotters & are in a position to review the performance of each device rather than relying on the users demands for a new device. The 3rd area of savings came in the Help Desk, where the reduced calls freed up one FTE, who was deployed to other IT projects. The final area is more of a soft cost and based on improved productivity. It is estimated that CNRL’s fleet uptime went from 95% to 99%. This 4% improvement, based on more than 500 devices, represents thousands of hours of returned user productivity.
Describe the improvement this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative made to the customer’s efficiency. What changed?
see above
How did this Solution, Service provided, or Initiative improve the customer’s ability to serve its internal and/or external clients?
captured above…sorry!
In what ways does this Solution or Service Provided go above and beyond industry norms and expectations?
Managed Print Services means different things to different people. From a LaserNetworks perspective, this enterprise solution is consistent with other enterprise deployments, although the geographic challenges posed here were fairly unique. However, part of the LaserNetworks commitment is to have true alignment with our customers. CNRL were successful in: 1. Reducing their operating costs by 40% 2. Reducing their capital spend on hardware. Many MPS companies are focused on a ‘rip & replace’ strategy, ‘pushing’ hardware as part of the rightsizing message. 3. Increased their device uptime to 99% 4. Increased their user satisfaction during a ‘cultural’ change in printing LaserNetworks true alignment with CNRL (all customers really) made this solution a total success for everyone.
How does this solution further your customer’s green or environmentally friendly plans?
Great question. LaserNetworks provided CNRL with highly-reliable and more environmentally-friendly Reflexion toner cartridges. THese cartridges have been found (independent study by PE International of Germany) to provide greater than 50 per cent reduction in global warming emissions when compared to fully recycled OEM cartridges. The initiatives with the deployment also reduced the need to purchase additional printers, copiers, and plotters….all of which have a significant carbon footprint when analyzing the manufacturing, packaging, and shipping of these new devices. CNRL was also profiled by LaserNetworks in its “Print Neutral” campaign. LaserNetworks takes the page volumes for our customers, and plants the equivalent in trees to off-set their paper usage. From a CNRL perspective, this initiative resulted in hundreds of trees being planted across North America. As a final note, through working with LaserNetworks on various print initiatives, CNRL cut their paper consumption by almost 20% in 2009 vs. the prior year.