Background
Over the past 40 years, Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston (CB HPW) has grown into the leading locally-owned real estate company in the North Carolina Triangle region. Partnering with 700 agents, CB HPW helps buyers and sellers transact home and business purchases. The company also offers customers several ancillary services including a new homes division, a mortgage company, insurance services, a title company, a rental and relocation division, as well as a real estate school.
With agents often on the road and working from virtual mobile offices, CB HPW invested in 700 iPad tablet devices to ensure that each agent could access critical information. Since agents are regularly printing real estate listings, contracts or related documents, the company’s CIO, Chis Walston, knew it was time for an updated printing strategy. According to Walston, “previously, the devices would not perform consistently, which hampered agents in transacting business.” He wanted to more closely monitor print usage in order to appropriately bill back agents and replace aging printers with reliable multifunctional products (MFPs) that could support mobile printing capabilities.
Konica Minolta Helps Coldwell Banker Implement Mobile Printing Strategy to Expedite Business Transactions
Solution
Following a recommendation from Realogy, the franchisor of CB HPW, Walston turned to a joint solution by Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta) and All Covered, the IT services division of Konica Minolta. CP HPW purchased 20 Konica Minolta bizhub MFPs and Nuance Equitrac, a print management software that provides the CIO with the ability to control and track print output across the company’s nine offices. With Equitrac the agents now have “Follow-Me” printing capabilities that allow them to print documents at any of the CB HPW offices from their iPads.
“Konica Minolta and All Covered offered a strategic partnership with Nuance, which consulted with us on the Equitrac software for tracking printer output,” said Walston. “With our previous solution, agents questioned the validity of the print output reports. By bringing in true Equitrac experts, Konica Minolta and All Covered made sure the software works properly and we now have an accurate accounting of all print usage.”
All Covered IT experts designed and deployed a network infrastructure to support the MFPs.
The new architecture includes a virtual server at the CP HPW main office and eight print servers. All Covered configured the solution with the required connectivity to ensure the MFPs integrate properly with the iPads as well as internal office desktop systems.
In addition to offering training for all the agents and support staff, Konica Minolta trained one person in each CB HPW office on the complete printing solution. Now each office has a person on staff to help respond to questions or train new staff. Konica Minolta also offers continued training to help CB HPW staff take advantage of advanced printing and document management features directly from the bizhub MFPs.
Business Impact
With the new Konica Minolta solution, CB HPW has improved printing functionality while significantly reducing existing operating expenses and on-going printing costs. With Konica Minolta and All Covered handling the entire hardware and software deployment, the internal IT staff did not have to reallocate any resources.
“With our business growing rapidly in recent years, printer usage is way up and the Konica Minolta and Equitrac solution came along just in time,” said Walston. “We used to receive complaints from our agents and other end users on a regular basis, but now, no one ever complains. They appreciate the reliability and the increased printing capabilities.”
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