Case Study

Softcat helps DFS tackle printing solution challenges, in partnership with HP

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DFS are the UK’s number one sofa manufacturer with operations in Spain and Ireland, too. They have been making high quality comfy and stylish sofas for 5 decades and currently have around 4000 employees with a turnover of approximately £825m.

The Challenges:

- Current printing estate has high running costs and too much hardware

- Cyber security issues

- Strain on internal IT, print devices were time consuming to manage

- Sustainability due to all the consumables

- No insights into printing behaviours

- No support

Softcat’s Solution:

- Softcat proposed HP Print Devices with PaperCut MF print management software which maximises user experience

- Softcat tailored an implementation plan to roll out more than 300 devices to 141 DFS sites across the UK and Ireland

The Outcomes:

- Reduced paper wastage in line with DFS sustainability goals, saving an estimate of £800,000 in printer running costs over 5 years

- Improved security with the secure follow-me print solution

- Saved IT team time to concentrate on accelerating IT projects in other areas of the business as a result of reduction of tickets

- Better level of support. Staff have a level of printing support that allows them to get on with their work

Moving Forward:

“The deployment went very well; we had challenges like all deployments, but they were overcome with great communication. We have less print issues than when we did with the old estate so that now enables us to focus on other IT projects, printing is taking care of itself at this point.

We have a strong relationship with Softcat, we have Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR) with our Softcat CSM where we analyse and look at the service and see how that’s going and that’s going well.” – Patrick Stapleton, Group IT: Head of Service Operations, DFS.

The goal is to provide DFS with the insights around their printing habits to enable them to maximise business efficiency and organisation outcomes. Additionally, by meeting sustainability and security goals, DFS are using HP with Softcat solutions and CSM alongside it, to move faster as a group.”