To drive efficiencies in its IT estate after significant budget cuts, Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC) appointed Annodata to provide a cloud-based managed print solution. In doing so, the council has shaved ?50,000 off of its annual print management costs and helped to safeguard frontline services.
Based in Buckinghamshire, AVDC is one of the largest district councils in the country, providing key services such as recycling, planning and town management for a major housing and employment growth area. Much like all local authorities, AVDC has had to deal with significant funding cuts from central government, having seen its government grant cut by 47 per cent since 2010. To counter these budgetary restrictions, and to prevent negatively impacting the services it provides, AVDC has adopted a cloud-first approach to its IT, moving functions and applications to the cloud wherever possible.
Karen Russell, IT Project Leader at AVDC, explained: “Cloud is a major part of our IT strategy and has a great deal to offer increasingly squeezed public bodies like us. The potential for cost savings is a key driver, but just as important are the flexibility and agility that the delivery model offers. In addition, having a third party manage our IT and infrastructure means that our internal IT staff can focus their efforts on our core business. But security is naturally a concern, particularly for the public sector, so when we came to looking at moving our print estate to the cloud, we wanted to make sure we were in safe hands.”
AVDC turned to Annodata who devised a cloud-based print solution that would reduce the number of devices in the print estate, improve security and drive down the council’s carbon footprint. A mobile printing facility was also deployed to allow staff and visitors to send their work to print from any device, in any part of the building.
All of the print servers are stored off-site in KDDI’s secure data centre and are managed remotely by Annodata, relieving the burden of management for AVDC’s in-house team.
“Annodata’s cloud print solution reduced the total number of devices, improved the security and functionality of our network, and drove down our paper usage. Mobile printing proved to be a huge asset, which allows the public to print directly without the intervention of our staff. Despite the added benefits offered by these newly introduced functions, we’re now making a saving of ?50,000 a year; money which can go towards servicing the public,” Karen concluded.
Annodata CEO, Rod Barthet commented “We’re delighted to provide AVDC with a solution which not only significantly reduces their overall costs but also improves their operational efficiency with a more flexible and resilient service. We’re seeing more and more organisations, both in the public and private sectors, adopting cloud solutions in this way and reaping the benefits it delivers to their bottom lines, their employees and often their own customers.”
