Print IT Reseller - issue 52

01732 759725 46 PRINTERS Three decades ago, Kirby was concerned that the industry was gathering a bad reputation and knew he wanted to work within a company that had integrity, one which looked after customers and provided solutions that they needed, backed up with first-class service. “This was particularly relevant to major accounts – you’ve got to look after the customer – you can’t get things wrong,” he said, adding: “I realised that the only way to ensure this was to do my own thing - hence the birth of The Digital Office (TDO).” Kirby said that the other area that was key to get right was on the service side. “My business partner and I didn’t want the risk associated with managing service in-house – a move that would also apply restrictions in terms of our ability to service customers nationwide,” he explained. “We wanted stability and continuity of service, so we approached Ricoh and said we wanted them to do all of our servicing. That basically meant that we could tap into their nationwide network of engineers to fulfil the supply, installation and servicing functions for our clients. We were the first partner to have this arrangement with Ricoh.” Most importantly, according to Kirby, this arrangement enabled TDO to sit on the customers’ side of the table. “We own the contract, supply at the right price and ensure they receive the best levels of service support. The client always deals with us and we manage the first line service call. It’s worked very well,” he said. Security first Kirby contends that the GDPR has highlighted a number of potential problems in terms of data security and that TDO has taken steps to help clients mitigate risk. “The hard disk drive on older printers and MFPs are a weak link, with more and more used devices being shipped abroad, we recognised the danger that their value was not in the device itself, but more so in the data held on the HDD.” He added: “This is why we introduced a service whereby we clean our clients’ hard drives. Our service contracts now provide clients with the ability to have their hard drives shredded or all of the data wiped at end-of-life. Alternatively we can upgrade their old machines to new models which automatically wipe the data on hard drives. We also offer them a regular once a year clean-up, we swap out the hard drive with an equivalent machine hard drive, retain soft data such as settings, and take the original one away to erase the data.” A level playing field Despite the industry cleaning up its act, Kirby argues that there are still businesses who have disputes with suppliers over copier contracts. “We are often asked for advice by legal firms representing clients who are challenging the costs of some contracts and have on numerous occasions been called as an expert witness in legal disputes over invoices and contracts,” he said. He continued: “The main issue is the practice of setting devices to click per development as opposed per copy – in essence this means a single colour print- out counts as four clicks – quadruple the cost per copy the business thinks it is paying as per the contract. The crux of this is that it can make other providers – quoting a cpp based on one click per colour print-out look expensive. We want to compete on a level playing field and not lose out on new business to companies charging on development as opposed to true click.” Hertfordshire-based The Digital Office was established 30 years ago, Managing Director Richard Kirby spoke to PrintIT Reseller about the company’s ethos and how it has evolved its offer to provide clients with a complete office solution A complete office solution Holistic solution Over and above the provision of print and printer-related services, TDO provides a holistic solution to bigger clients when they are in the process of thinking they need to move or relocate. TDO has partnerships with a number of complementary office supply businesses including moving companies, telephony and furniture suppliers. “One of the most interesting things when planning an office fit-out, ensuring it’s completed in the right timescale for a client is that the process doesn’t start early enough,” Kirby said. “Typically the end date i.e. move in date is confirmed, but in many cases this gets pushed back when you don’t sort out getting say the data cabling or phone service set-up far enough in advance. For example, BT needs four months’ notice to deliver a data connection.” TDO works on a nine month timescale and sets out a plan outlining what needs to be done week by week, month by month. However, Kirby counsels that the first thing organisations need to look at is the reason behind the move. “We ask clients are you moving because you’ve run out of space or, because you’ve filled up your space with paper?” he explained. “Normally what they say is they’ve been told they need x amount of space, but Our service contracts now provide clients with the ability to have their hard drives shredded or all of the data wiped at end- of-life