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It’s what you do, not where you are. Today work is becoming increasingly mobile as physical presence at the office becomes less necessary. The workforce itself is changing, too. Digital natives reshape expectations of IT in the workplace. Konica Minolta helps with solutions, services and guidance needed to step into a mobile future.
The world of work has changed and so too have the workers. The workforce has never looked as varied as it does today. In a competitive labour market, highly skilled knowledge workers have unprecedented freedom to determine their employment circumstances and the organisations best able to meet these demands are those that attract and retain talent. With mobile workplace solutions companies can create working environments that foster greater creativity, efficiency and freedom.
Nevertheless, more flexible, mobile businesses also gain a competitive edge by being more responsive, accessible and able to work whenever and wherever.
With the help of a strong partner like Konica Minolta, the benefits of mobility are more accessible than ever before. With its deep portfolio of IT services and its broad network of partnerships with leading technology suppliers, Konica Minolta is able to create solutions that meet the needs of today’s workforce and can be integrated into company environments. The goal is to provide a seamless and uniform user experience across all systems, irrespective of the individual or their location. This is achieved because Konica Minolta serves as the single point of contact for all IT needs. Mobile access to any data or team member can be granted without having to sacrifice usability or security.
"Konica Minolta’s solutions and services actively promote flexible and mobile ways to work and collaborate."
Konica Minolta
Konica Minolta offers its customers a portfolio of products and services designed with workplace mobility in mind and tailors these to each customer to ensure an optimal fit to their specific requirements. This is ensured by a thorough analysis of the company environment to fully understand the customer’s needs and business processes. Established systems do not have to be replaced and can become an integral part of this environment, which significantly eases the transformation processes.
Trying to combine different systems and different solutions from a variety of vendors often complicates issue management and blurs the lines of responsibilities amongst service providers. Konica Minolta eliminates those inefficiencies by being the exclusive single point of contact (SPOC).
As the workforce grows more mobile, not only the location at which they work becomes variable but also the time. Konica Minolta ensures that mobile systems are up and running at any time.
Be an attractive employer, create a working environment that foster greater creativity and freedom and attract more talents
Gain a competitive edge by being more responsive, accessible and able to work whenever and wherever
Today work is becoming increasingly mobile by default as physical presence at the office becomes less critical and more people are hired to work on a project basis rather than on long-term employment contracts. This new reality is making it essential for businesses to reimagine the workplace and completely rethink the systems, technology and services that support it.
Konica Minolta was recently named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Print in the Distributed Workforce 2022 Vendor Assessment (doc #US48596221, January 2022). According to the report, “Konica Minolta's approach to providing for a more distributed workforce begins with a mindset that "work is not where you are, but work is what you get done." Businesses need technology that's right for them with the service behind it to support the organization.”
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:
Elajo is one of Sweden’s leading electricity, mechanical engineering and energy com¬panies, offering broad expertise and a knowledgeable staff of close to 900 employees. Since it was founded in 1958, the family business has experienced strong growth over many years and combines the proximity as well as the flexibility of a small company with the resources of a large one. In the vast majority of cases, the company is geographically very close to its customers as it has offices in 38 cities in Sweden. With its products and services, Elajo and its employees generate a yearly turnover of approximately SEK 900 million. The decision in favour of the long-term partner Konica Minolta for the update of their software and hardware as well as for the assignment of managed network services was just natural. The solutions ensure the new system provides the highest level of security while enabling very efficient and simplified workflows.
For Elajo’s business, it is exceptionally important to be able to focus on the needs of their customers. In today’s economy, underlying IT systems take on a decisive role in order to allow this. As more and more systems become connected and internal as well as external business processes grow increasingly digital, companies need to be able to leverage the full potential of these technologies to stay competitive in their market and serve their customers with the highest levels of quality. A strong partner who knows its business and is able to take care of IT and the digitalisation of a company’s processes is especially crucial with a diverse and geographically spread company structure with 38 offices. “Managing our IT is at the core of our business and we want to limit the internal resources we invest here to a minimum. Hence, in order to be able to focus our resources and efforts on supporting our employees, our IT department turned to Konica Minolta, our long-established, proven partner,” Elajo’s CFO Olle Westerling explains. Through the close dialogue between the two companies before the start of the project, Konica Minolta gained an in-depth understanding of Elajo’s needs and was hence able to tailor the service to exactly the desired outcome, freeing up internal resources. “In many ways, it feels like Konica Minolta’s experts have become a part of our IT team,” Westerling added.
In order to provide Elajo not only with a set of IT products but also with the solution it truly needs, Konica Minolta delivers a complete array of managed services. Konica Minolta’s experts proactively manage the company’s entire network: this covers hardware and IT management, including PCs, servers and the whole printing infrastructure, as well as software components such as security firewalls and conventional day-to-day office software. The services include real-time monitoring and patching of the network and infrastructure as well as the continuous deployment of new software and hardware, ensuring the maximum level of security to protect each office location. For Elajo, this procedure has the enormous advantage that the company has one single point of contact for all topics concerning their network, as Konica Minolta is responsible for all issues concerning the IT network. With Konica Minolta harmonising the company’s IT set-up, new locations can now be easily integrated into the existing systems. The new locations receive an easy-to-implement rollout package of simple steps so they can be up and running in a fraction of the time a new set-up used to take.
As an organisation, Elajo is on its path to taking advantage of the potential of digitalised work processes. Konica Minolta harmonised the company’s office software with the implementation of Microsoft Office 365 across all locations and mobile devices. The project was planned and executed in very close collaboration between Konia Minolta’s experts and Elajo’s IT professionals, ensuring a perfect fit for the entire organisation. The implementation opens up a wide range of applications for mobile and remote work as well as communication; it is of exceptionally high value for employees who are constantly on the road or at construction sites. Access to new applications gives employees greater flexibility in how they work and how they interact with their peers, while simplifying the whole maintenance and update process of the system. “Konica Minolta knows our business very well. Their solutions enable us to work remotely, for example, which significantly increases our overall efficiency. We can therefore focus on our core tasks and have to travel less, which means huge financial and environmental benefits for us,” says Olle Westerling.
The projects with Elajo are a prime example of Konica Minolta’s complete focus on customer needs. As more of a solution provider than supplier of products, Konica Minolta makes sure to fully understand the business and the existing circumstances within the customer environment. Furthermore, Konica Minolta’s approach of remaining a universal service partner even after the implementation phase of the tailor-made systems defines the close relationships it has with its customers as well as the insights into their business processes and what they need in order to deliver the best possible solutions for their customers.
Our maxim is to be the most attractive business partner on the market for electrical, energy and technology solutions. Through our long-lasting relationship with Konica Minolta we know that they are the right vendor for our IT needs so that we can focus on our customers. We can be sure that for projects like infrastructure and IT support we don’t have to worry as Konica Minolta knows our business and delivers exactly what we need
Olle Westerling
CFO, Elajo Invest AB
The decision in favour of the long-term partner Konica Minolta for the update of their software and hardware as well as for the assignment of managed network services was just natural. The solutions ensure the new system provides the highest level of security while enabling very efficient and simplified workflows.
With its 17 experienced and highly skilled employees, Sporrong & Eriksson Revisionsbyrå AB is an auditing firm based in Kalmar, Sweden. Deeply rooted in this southeastern region, the company is proud to provide its more than 600 small and medium-sized business customers with the highest level of professional auditing services – always combined with a personal, individual customer approach. Using the possibilities digitalisation provides in the service of their customers has been a key goal for Sporrong & Eriksson from early on, winning the firm the ‘Future Agency of the Year 2017’ award. Together with Konica Minolta, the company decided to take a new, bold step on the path towards becoming truly digital.
Since its foundation in 2000, Sporrong & Eriksson has grown to become Kalmar’s leading accounting firm. It has achieved this by providing its customers with uncompromising professionalism in its work – and by setting itself apart from its competitors with a highly personal level of service. Being there for – and with – its customers is a key component of the company’s strategy for success. Hence, the firm’s employees spend a significant part of their work outside the office at their customers’ premises, or on the way to them. An IT enabling remote work is therefore not just ‘nice to have’ for Sporrong & Eriksson, but a vital factor for its business model.
For a business whose single product is its employees’ time, the IT solution enabling this has to work seamlessly and be absolutely reliable. At the same time, due to the sensitive and confidential nature of the data they process, this solution needs to ensure the highest levels of data security. Håkan Sporrong, one of the firm’s four owners, explains: “Both our own and our clients’ time is very valuable, so we needed a system that supported how we work. We needed to be agile but at the same time heavily protected.”
Having been a dedicated and trusted long-term partner of Sporrong & Eriksson since 2011, Konica Minolta first provided a deep analysis and consultation for finding the best-suited solution to take this next step in its partner’s digitalisation process. The previous on-premises solution did not live up to Sporrong & Eriksson’s expectations anymore. They were looking for an IT system that is always up-to-date – from server to workstations – with the highest level of security and 24/7 reliability. At the same time, this solution should relieve internal resources as best as possible from any IT tasks. In the past, Sporrong & Eriksson staff had to manually perform back-ups after working hours. With regard to optimised work processes, when working from outside the office with customer data, Sporrong & Eriksson employees first needed to check out the relevant files from the local system and then afterwards check them back in again. This process made teamwork on these documents highly difficult and cumbersome, particularly from different locations. Last but not least, Sporrong & Eriksson was also looking for a partner to provide external help desk support and new workstation equipment.
To meet these requirements, Konica Minolta identified the implementation of its one-stop solution Remote Care Workplace Premium as the perfect fit. At the backend, the servers now run from Konica Minolta’s high-security data centre, ensuring maximum reliability and access from anywhere. Backups are now performed automatically and periodically, minimising the threat of any data loss and relieving the firm’s staff of this arduous, repetitive – and non-billable – task. Antivirus protection is also at the highest level and always up-to-date. New laptops were provided for the employees, with Konica Minolta ensuring that operating systems and applications always run with the latest versions. Furthermore, this package includes a 24/7 helpdesk with experienced Konica Minolta experts always ready to provide support and quickly resolve any issue that may arise. Ultimately, the goal was for Konica Minolta to take over the role of the firm’s external IT department.
For Sporrong & Eriksson, it was absolutely crucial for its employees to be able to continue their work for their demanding customers without interruption despite the migration to the new system. In addition, as an auditing firm, the company works with a number of highly industry-specific applications. Konica Minolta had to ensure that they would integrate seamlessly into the new IT system and provide all the remote work capabilities required of them.
Konica Minolta’s experts’ high dedication, commitment and expertise were crucial for turning this project into a success. “The service people who ran the implementation were very professional and we felt that they were highly skilled. Whenever there were issues or problems, Konica Minolta handled them quickly and with great respect for the process,” Håkan Sporrong explains. He is highly satisfied with the result and Konica Minolta’s support: “Now, it doesn’t matter if we´re at our office, at home or at the clients. We have the same possibility to access all of the programs, files and applications that we need to do our job. We are very happy with the service that Konica Minolta delivers.”
Implementing Remote Care Workplace Premium has thereby helped Sporrong & Eriksson make a big leap forward in turning their bold vision for digitalising their business into reality. And it doesn’t stop here: future projects together with Konica Minolta for achieving a truly paperless office and workflows with the customers, for example, are already underway.
We felt the need to make a digital transformation and for that Konica Minolta was, and is, the perfect partner. The solution they presented to us was exactly what we were looking for: a modern cuttingedge digital solution with a total focus on flexibility and security.
Håkan Sporrong
Firm Owner, Sporrong & Eriksson Revisionsbyrå AB
Using the possibilities digitalisation provides in the service of their customers has been a key goal for Sporrong & Eriksson from early on, winning the firm the ‘Future Agency of the Year 2017’ award. Together with Konica Minolta, the company decided to take a new, bold step on the path towards becoming truly digital.