Case study: Crowe Clark Whitehall

Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP is a UK Member of Crowe Howath International, the eighth largest global network of professional accounting services with 200 independent member firms operating around the world.

Perfect Colours and Crowe Clark Whitehill began a relationship in August 1999, when Crowe Clark Whitehill had already started a review process of their existing print infrastructure. At the time their printer and copier fleet consisted of 28 ‘mixed model’ devices spread over two London buildings. Perfect Colours recognized that a large number of these devices were old and were no longer cost effective to maintain, not only in terms of day-to-day consumable items but for spare parts and ongoing service. “We had a lot of print equipment which we had for many years and we were aware we were spending quite a lot of money every year just keeping it running,” explains Jason Davies, Print Room Manager at Crowe Clark Whitehill. This situation was compounded by the complexity of managing multiple print drivers on their servers. Before making any recommendations, Perfect Colours conducted a print audit across the two London offices, a process that involved mapping and monitoring the usage, consumables and service costs.

The final requirement was for 17 MFD devices. As this project was now based around replacing all of Crowe Clark Whitehill's existing printer fleet, it would be critical that this happened as part of the St Brides Street refurbishment. To facilitate a seamless transition, Perfect Colours was to replicate the same user experience even though the surroundings and the equipment would be new. “The desire for minimum disruption and user familiarity was critical throughout this project,” states Jason. “The real challenge was to make sure the printers were located correctly so that people were never too far away from a device. Perfect Colours suggested that the printers form a triangle and when we applied this to the floor plan it was an extremely logical solution,” he continues.

The Xerox 5945s and AltaLink C8045s were seamlessly integrated into Crowe Clark Whitehill's current print server system. “We have also introduced duplex and mono printing as part of the move towards a central document management system in order to reduce the amount of paperwork that is physically held on file,” says Jason. The installation of the 17 MFDs started in September 2016 and Perfect Colours worked closely with Crowe Clark Whitehill's IT department to set up IP addresses and load a single global print driver. Perfect Colours’ technical team conducted a system pre-test before each device was installed to the pre-agreed floor plan.

In summary, Jason Davies states, “Perfect Colours listened, understood, clarified and confirmed what we wanted to achieve before putting forward a solution that was right for Crowe Clark Whitehill.”