Y Soft
3 min read
Customer Profile
Czech Post Czech Post is a state-established provider of postal and related support services for Czech citizens. Founded by the Ministry of the Interior, Czech Post has more than 3,000 organizational units, including post offices, specialized areas such as operations and logistics, ICT and strategy/development, franchises, and dispensing points.
With over 28,000 employees, Czech Post is one of the largest national employers. In addition to receiving, transporting and delivering mail, Czech Post provides contractual services to other business entities and authorities. The Czech Post also pays the costs of issuing new postage stamps and puts postage stamps into circulation.
Challenge
The main challenges were to improve back office reporting, to unify SAP system printing with print management for comprehensive reporting
and tracking and to reduce print services costs.
In 2012, Czech Post began addressing its need for unified and streamlined printing processes. The ICT team, responsible for print services, struggled with a print infrastructure that was decentralized and lacked the uniformity and security they required.
To address their needs, Czech Post wanted a solution that would provide a
centralized infrastructure giving them accurate insight into print activity and print device utilization. This insight would allow them to optimize their print device fleet and better understand business printing, private printing and how to reduce costs of consumables. Consumables were currently ordered by separate divisions without oversight which contributed to higher costs.
Solution
Czech Post chose YSoft SAFEQ 6 print management software to meet their needs and deployed it in ten administrative buildings in several regions. Soon, Czech Post was realizing 40% savings in overall print services costs including toner and paper.
“With the savings we were achieving and the outstanding support from Y Soft, it was only natural to transition to the newest version of SAFEQ 6 and purchase additional licenses for all the Czech Republic’s administrative centers," says Karel Jirsa Manager of ICT Support Operations, Czech Post.
“ The culmination of our success with Y Soft was in the implementation of SAFEQ 6 with our internal SAP system.”
Happy with the results they saw, in 2016, Czech Post expanded its use of SAFEQ 6 to centrally manage print services for thirty-eight nationwide administrative offices.
By 2017, the savings increased to 41.47%, and after further optimization and utilization, the total cost savings were almost 50% (49.06%) in 2018.
A significant part of print services costs savings is the gradual decrease of color printing. Currently up to 23% of all print jobs are printed in color. Using SAFEQ 6 Rules-Based Engine, color printing at Czech Post is set to need approval. This contributes to the post office’s initiative to be more environmentally friendly.
Benefits
Prior to SAFEQ 6, ICT spent a significant amount of time supporting users on printer driver installation and other support services because print devices varied and often did not meet the complex printing needs of employees. The implementation of SAFEQ 6 accompanied a uniform print device fleet. This can save the ICT team tens of hours monthly allowing them to work on other ICT projects within the company.
Increased document security afforded by SAFEQ 6 is appreciated by employees, especially those in HR and Legal departments, who often work with sensitive, personal data of employees and company business. Employees would need to run to the printer to retrieve a print job so that it would not be accidentally taken by others and thrown away. With SAFEQ 6 Authentication, print jobs do not print until the job owner logs into the print device and can retrieve their prints. This means sensitive, private documents are kept secure for employees’ peace of mind and a more comfortable work environment.
With YSAFEQ 6, Czech Post had the opportunity to reduce its reliance on paper by shifting to digital documents in a uniform manner. While various departments used disparate systems for digital document creation and delivery, SAFEQ 6 offered a consistent and simplified way to scan documents and deliver them to the user’s email inbox.
Within Czech Post, “Post without paper” is a paperless initiative where the legal department uses SAFEQ 6 to convert paper-based contracts into digital files. Over time, the department will no longer have paper contracts as all new contracts are in digital form and all existing contracts will have been digitized.
An added value for the postal business’ ICT team is improved print services availability and guaranteed timely technical support.
The highlight of the relationship between Y Soft and Czech Post is the ongoing integration of SAFEQ 6 with Czech Post’s robust SAP system. With the Czech Post ICT team’s support in providing settings, Y Soft developed an integration with the SAP system so that printing from SAP was, by default, routed through and accounted for by SAFEQ 6. The integration supports multiple print batches uniformly printed in the correct order. Within Czech Post, nearly 90% of users can print from SAP via SAFEQ 6.
The integration of SAFEQ 6 with their SAP system was achieved through the BC-XOM interface. The integrated solution enables print jobs to be automatically processed and printed on a local print server which speeds the job printing process through a secure print queue and streamlines the transfer of print job data over the Czech Post’s network. SAP users can view the status of their print jobs directly in the SAP NetWeaver interface.
