Share
In this fast-moving digital age, small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises need to stay up to speed. More and more SMEs are choosing cloud solutions, like Microsoft Office 365, to deal with huge volumes of data, work efficiently, improve security, control costs and minimise risks. The team at Konica Minolta understand the smaller business needs and plans. We are ready to help organisations take to the cloud technology with confidence.
All these challenges can be answered by flexible cloud-based services that take away uncertainty and put SMEs in control of their data.
Today, there are cloud computing services and software-as-a-service solutions for virtually every type and size of business. But small and medium enterprises don't need experience, resources and expertise to take advantage of the opportunities. All they need is the guidance of one of the Konica Minolta consultants for cloud computing. They help businesses to find the tailored answer to their needs.
From simple workflow to automatic invoice processing up to fully managed cloud and data centre services, small and medium enterprises can choose whatever they need. There's also 24/7 support if they want it. By asking Konica Minolta to manage the entire IT infrastructure, businesses can relieve the weight of their operational responsibility and concentrate on doing what they do best.
Get cloud services that fit your industry, structure and the way you like to work.
More than a cloud provider, Konica Minolta is an experienced guide. It helps small and medium enterprises to identify their needs, with an initial assessment of the situation and implementation of a solution. They can add on 24/7 support and Konica Minolta can also help them through any further development as their company grows. If they have a problem, Konica Minolta finds a solution. Even more flexible as a provider. Thanks to its network of hardware and software partners, like Microsoft, it can deliver whatever businesses might need to release the potential of their business.
Does a fully cloud-based solution feel too drastic? If it seems like a step too far, Konica Minolta can develop hybrid solutions that bring SMEs some of the benefits of cloud computing and take them along a suitable path.
"Businesses are able to become more agile, competitive and resilient, while at the same time freeing their workforce from the burden of inefficient processes"
.
With the exponential growth in data, and faced by a need to compete in a fast-moving digital age, the decision to stay with outmoded legacy systems can mean that SMEs risk falling behind. With the benefit of a long-term perspective and a deep understanding of our customers’ businesses, Konica Minolta is helping SMEs get up to speed and take to the cloud.
To enable you to focus 100% on your business, we've developed a complete service that gives you ultimate flexibility when printing and allows you to save money at the same time — without compromising on data security. Always managed your printing environment yourself? Our Konica Minolta Cloud Print offers numerous advantages over in-house management:
Supporting SMEs as a partner, our consultant can walk businesses through the process and show them which easy-to-use tools can help. Konica Minolta explain how their business can thrive with more cost-efficiency, flexibility and security. Different processes can be integrated into a unified system. It will be robust, reliable and, of course, meet all regulatory requirements. No need to worry about software updates, data security, emergency recovery, cloud storage or backup with a cloud service designed for businesses.
Enhanced mobility
Higher Flexibility
Improved security
Affordable pay-as-you-use pricing
Predictable costs
The Be-Ge Group is the world’s oldest manufacturer for suspended driver seats and is among the leading suppliers of seats for buses, forklifts, industrial trucks, forestry and construction vehicles, trucks and railway traffic. The Swedish family-owned group of companies runs operations in Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.
For a manufacturing company and supplier to the automotive industry in particular, ensuring the continuous operation of many different production sites distributed throughout various countries poses certain challenges. The most crucial one with regards to IT: Safeguarding an absolutely reliable operation and securing availability without interruption while maintaining a maximum of data security.
As a decade-long partner of this manufacturer, Konica Minolta knows its requirements quite well. With the implementation of a holistic, tailor-made IT solution, which can be rolled out throughout all production sites of the Be-Ge Group individually, Konica Minolta is not just delivering hardware and software licenses, but serving the customer as a reliable long-term service partner, helping their personnel to focus their time and resources on their core business.
From a financing perspective, despite having the solution located on site, Be-Ge is in fact only paying for the resources actually used each month, having the advantage of managed hardware at their production sites without the disadvantages of fixed hardware and software costs. This hybrid cloud solution encompasses all functionalities crucial to the customer like back-up service, disaster recovery protocols and software & hardware updates and upgrades, which are key advantages for Be-Ge to be able to serve their highly demanding customers even better
As a supplier for the automotive industry, Be-Ge Group has to abide to very strict delivery rules. With timing of production being highly sensitive within this supply chain, missed delivery deadlines entail significant penalty fees. Like many production companies, Be-Ge’s operations rely heavily on on-premise IT. Hence, reliable systems and IT infrastructure close to the production, build the basis for a sustainably successful business. “Konica Minolta understands our business perfectly. We cannot afford any downtime of our IT systems. To ensure this, they provided us with a cloud solution that is located on our premises but monitored and maintained centrally by Konica Minolta”, says Reza Shahrbani, IT-Manager Be-Ge Sweden.
Through a single point of contact, Be-Ge wanted to have their complete IT needs covered by one reliable long-term partner who takes clear responsibility and truly knows where to put the emphasis to tailor a holistic solution to their exact requirements.
The so-called Remote-Pod concept set up by Konica Minolta provides a redundant on-premise high ability infrastructure as a service (HA IaaS) solution, where server hardware is placed at the production site of the customer for reliable offline on-site access, but is managed externally from Konica Minolta’s data centre – including a full service desk support.
With monitoring as a service (MaaS) and back-up as a service (BaaS), the Konica Minolta experts are able to constantly monitor and back-up all customer systems at their data centre ensuring a secure operation. In case of a disaster, the customer’s operations can be up and running within a matter of hours at a different location with access to all data needed. The sources of possible IT threats can be detected early and countermeasures can be applied immediately. The package also includes licensing as a service (LaaS), giving the customers full access to the necessary software in the scope they really need it.
We cannot afford any downtime of our IT systems. To ensure this, Konica Minolta provided us with a cloud solution that is located on our premises but monitored and maintained centrally by Konica Minolta
Reza Shahrbani
IT-Manager, Be-Ge Sweden
This Remote-Pod solution was developed by Konica Minolta with the concept in mind to be able to roll it out at various international customer sites of different size individually, without the dependence on a centralised IT or software infrastructure, while still maintaining a homogenous system architecture. Hence, Be-Ge was able to implement Remote-Pods at their nine largest operations in the first step and include further production sites in individual processes afterwards. For the Be-Ge Group, it is a very valuable asset to know that they can rely on Konica Minolta’s international service and support through their service desk.
Since the production of the Swedish automotive supplier BE-GE Group depends on IT, their infrastructure needs to be higly reliable and modern. We support them with our extensive IMS (Infrastructure Management Services) experience and enabled our customer to be independent from internet failure through a local cloud solution.
Cost-effective decentralised cloud solution for a virtual workload with all the benefits of local hardware, which can be placed anywhere in the world
Complete package of hardware and software based on a Windows Server 2016 Clustered Hyper V solution with shared storage and monitoring, backup and service desk support from Konica Minolta
Security as a priority
“I can gladly say that Brettes Paysage has been able to rely on a 21st-century architecture ever since deployment! ”
Jérémy Dupuy
IT Manager, Brettes Paysage, France
A family-owned company, Brettes Paysage fosters trusting relationships with its customers and partners. So when a Konica Minolta sales representative—a long-familiar face in various circles—presented the Workplace Hub concept, the company was keen to hear more.
Security was the deal clincher for Brettes Paysage. The company had previously been hacked three times, bringing administrative activity to a standstill for several days on each occasion.
Jérémy Dupuy is the IT Manager at Brettes Paysage:
“We signed at the end of February 2020 for installation in June. The integration of the Konica Minolta Workplace Hub provided us with an opportunity to upgrade our office systems.
In particular, we were able to streamline our printer contracts, with just one printer now, and replace an old server that was becoming obsolete. The Workplace Hub really is the perfect tool for a setup like ours.”
“Everything went as planned in terms of dates. For example, the equipment was delivered on time, prior to the installation date. In addition, we received regular progress updates about the project and equipment delivery. We were unable to benefit from the Workplace Hub during lockdown but colleagues who are still working remotely now have secure access.”
Brettes Paysage benefits from the Konica Minolta Workplace Hub in four main ways:
Varri imports and distributes climbing and outdoor equipment, with customers in the sports industry, rescue industry and building industry. The company has a wealth of expertise in climbing and fall protection equipment but its original three employees had to depend on a more restricted source of IT knowledge when the company was founded in 2008. “A friend helped me to set up our own server and I was responsible for operating and maintaining it. It was housed in a toilet and a cupboard at various points”, explains founder and owner Marius Olsen. This solution worked fine for many years. The company’s data backup routine consisted of taking a copy home on an external hard drive at somewhat irregular intervals. However, the setup was not without its challenges, particularly as Olsen alone was responsible for all IT operations. “I remember one day when I had finally taken some time off to do a bit of climbing but I had to go back into work to fix the server because it had stopped working. That time the power supply was the problem; another time it was the CMOS battery.” Olsen explains that a new start-up company can probably get away with more than an established organisation. However, as the company grew and employed more people, supplied more products and worked with more suppliers and customers, there came a point when finding more professional IT solutions became necessary.
“We had to choose between building on our existing setup, investing in better equipment and perhaps employing an IT consultant to operate it, or we could outsource the work to professionals who could guarantee stability and security. We chose a cloud solution from Konica Minolta called HydraCloud. We’ve now been working with it for seven years”, says Olsen.
The HydraCloud solution allows the company’s order systems, accounting systems and everything else to run on servers located in Konica Minolta’s ISO certified data centres in Norway. Varri employees log into these systems via a remote desktop. Varri no longer operates its own servers, and the only IT equipment left in the cupboard is a firewall and network switches provided by Konica Minolta as part of the cloud agreement.
Olsen is especially pleased that this setup has freed up a lot of his time to focus on the core business instead of on technical IT solutions. “I now have more time to focus on our suppliers, customers and markets, and I sleep well at night knowing that all of our IT equipment works properly at all times,” says Olsen.
“A friend helped me to set up our own server and I was responsible for operating and maintaining it. When our company grew, we had to choose between building on our existing setup, investing in better equipment and perhaps employing an IT consultant to operate it, or we could outsource the work to professionals who could guarantee stability and security. We chose a cloud solution from Konica Minolta called HydraCloud. I now have more time to focus on our suppliers, customers and markets, and I sleep well at night knowing that all of our IT equipment works properly at all times.”
Marius Olsen
Founder and owner, Varri, Norway
Varri has actually experienced first hand how important it is to have a secure setup: It is one of a very large number of companies to be attacked by ransomware in recent years. One Monday morning, the employees discovered that the systems had been hacked. All systems had been locked down and encrypted, and on the printer there was a ransom note from the hackers demanding a hefty amount for unlocking everything again.
“The incident was not too much of a problem for us because a data backup every night is part of the service from Konica Minolta. We were able to roll back to a backup from just a few hours earlier so we were up and running again as normal in just a few hours”, says Olsen.
The incident was a good reminder of how vulnerable Varri was when it was running its own server in a cupboard with an old backup lying around at home on an external hard drive.
“I hardly dare to think about what would have happened if the ransomware attack had happened before we moved to the cloud solution. The backup could have been two weeks old”, he says.
The Norwegian company Varri imports and distributes climbing and outdoor equipment and has customers in the sports industry, rescue industry and building industry. The company, which was founded in 2008, has wealth of expertise in climbing and fall protection equipment, but restricted in IT. When the company was founded, a fried of company owner Marius Olsen helped him setting up the server, which was housed in a toilet and a cupboard at various points, and Olsen was subsequently responsible for its operation and maintenance.