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PRINT.IT
01732 759725
PrintIT
sees the the Future of Work in practice in
NewField IT’s new Twickenham offices
Agents for change
What does the printed page
mean for you? For many
business people, it has come
to be seen as an unwanted
expense and clear evidence
of careless printing habits.
For James Duckenfield,
managing director of print
and workflow consultancy
NewField IT, the printed page
is the symptom of a much
more fundamental problem.
“Several years ago we did
a project for a Top 10 law firm.
Their information was split
between email, which was
one of their main document
management systems, and
an email archive, which was
a separate specialist system
for archiving email; they had a
document management system,
which the IT department had
dumbed down so much that
people didn’t use it; they had
a system for tracking on-site
records; and a separate system
for tracking off-site records.
With all those different sources
of record, it would take an
eternity to find a document. So,
what happened was that people
printed everything and kept it in
a filing cabinet,” he said.
Instead of implementing
controls to reduce printing,
the preferred option of many
Digitisation
managed print service (MPS)
providers, Duckenfield chose
to address the root cause of
the problem – the company’s
inefficient IT infrastructure.
“We were able to say ‘Gone
are the days when you have six
or seven different sources to
go to to find your data; we are
going to have one document
management system and it’s
going to be integrated into
other key systems like email
so that it has real value for
your day-to-day job’. Moving to
this system allowed the firm to
consolidate its real estate from
two offices in Central London to
just one, bringing massive real
estate savings. And their fee
earners got 10% more space
than they had before.”
As Duckenfield says, it
was “a win:win for everyone
involved”, including NewField
IT, which has gradually evolved
its print consulting services
to encompass the broader
issues of filing and document
management, business
processes and IT integration,
always keeping one eye on
potential space savings.
“Real estate savings are
so much bigger than print
savings. If we are trying to build
a business case for change,
we can either stick to print and
deliver savings of hundreds of
thousands of pounds or we can
start incorporating real estate
which adds up to savings of
millions of pounds. I don’t know
any big corporates that don’t
have a corporate real estate
reduction programme,” he said.
NewField IT has proved
adept at helping organisations
achieve such goals. The Bank of
New York Mellon, for example,
was able to reduce its real
estate requirement in Central
London by 32% by removing
two thirds of its on-site filing.
Another NewField IT client, a
financial services company,
almost halved its London office
real estate by making similar
reductions to on-site filing.
The key to achieving and
maintaining such savings
is implementing an IT
infrastructure optimised for
what NewField IT calls the
Future of Work.
This concept envisages
a world in which bricks
and mortar are used for
specialist facilities and better
collaboration space rather
than for storing paper; where
employees have access to the
information they need wherever
they are; where there is a
process framework so people
can work in compliance with
corporate policies on security
etc. regardless of their location
or the device being used;
and in which there is a move
away from capital investment
to ‘something as a service’
– buildings as a service, IT
infrastructure as a service,
software as a service.
Future of Work
Future of Work principles can
be seen in practice in NewField
IT’s new offices in Twickenham,
London. As the company is still
growing, it has moved to larger
premises, but Duckenfield
asserts that Future of Work
drivers – particularly around
the use of space – are equally
All paper must be cleared from desks by the end of the day
NewField IT
advocates
strict
zoning of
office
space
James Duckenfield,
managing director, NewField IT
