SITA

Founded in 1949, SITA remains at the forefront of its industry, servicing more than 1,000 airports in over 200 countries. Solutions include technologies for every aspect of air travel, from check-in to baggage management. The company also provides specialist services for airports, air freight, airlines, governments (security), ground handlers, air traffic control, aerospace, and travel and distribution.

SITA employs more than 4,500 people globally with 100 employees based in Australia.

The challenge:

A dynamic and fast-paced business, SITA relies on the performance of its printers – two colour MFDs and three laser printers – to support day-to-day operations and also produce high-quality documents.

With their previous supplier, SITA had experienced extensive delays waiting for technicians to resolve problems that wasted the team’s time and severely impacted on productivity.

Ellie Shedden, Office Manager at SITA, says, “Performance of the printers is vital, work is always time-critical. If a printer goes offline, the team is forced to find other methods of getting the documents they need printed. Employees would seek out a neighbouring office to use their printer. It was inconvenient, and wasted time, money and resources.”

When it came time to evaluate their print requirements, SITA went to tender to seek a vendor that could provide reliable, high-performance machines, as well as timely support and service. 

SITA also has a strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, which incorporates responsible procurement, so sustainability and green practices were also important credentials for the vendor to have. 

At the time, SITA had very little knowledge of Kyocera or how their print solutions would compare with higher-profile document solution companies. 

The solution:

During the presales process, Kyocera evaluated SITA’s document solution needs, undertaking a holistic review of how SITA utilised its printing system, and provided the company with a report identifying the gap between what was currently installed and what could be achieved in terms of efficiency, reliability and sustainability.

Kyocera recommended SITA install two TASKalfa 3551ci machines, which are colour capable, customisable and simple to use. “It was such a smooth, quick process,” says Ellie. “On the first day, the machines were delivered, unpacked and on the second day, the technician installed the machines and completed the IT setup. He also taught us how to use the machine. Very easy.”

The machines also contain Kyocera’s ECOSYS technology, which is specifically designed to reduce environmental impact, helping SITA to satisfy the sustainability component of their CSR program.

Another key recommendation was Kyocera’s unique Three-Tier Billing, a solution which offers colour print costs based on the percentage of colour toner used, allowing customers to simply pay for what they consume. This would cut SITA’s colour printing costs by up to 50%.

The result:

Once installed, SITA realised just how simple and efficient the new Kyocera machines were. Ellie says, “Functionality is so easy and flexible – much more so than our old printers.” The small things made a huge difference; for example, instead of having to call the provider to input changes to the digital address book, which they had had to previously, they could now simply edit the address book directly on the machines themselves, saving time and increasing productivity.

Service proved another important differentiator to their previous supplier; Kyocera was able to beat the previous provider’s response time by two-thirds. Ellie says, “Kyocera did what they said they were going to do, called when they said they were going to call and they actioned what they said they were going to action, on time. This is very refreshing.”

The combination of Kyocera’s unique Three-Tier Billing and ECOSYS technology also saved SITA 30% per month on printing. Ellie says, “We were surprised by how much money was saved by moving to Kyocera,” says Ellie. “Not only was printing less expensive, but we also saved around 60% on device hire. The first bill I got, I emailed my Kyocera Account Manager to say ‘you’re brilliant’, because it was so much cheaper. I thought there must have been a catch and that we’d been sent a follow-up bill. There was no catch. It was a huge shock.”

Kyocera’s effective and efficient solution inspired SITA to switch suppliers, benefitting from Kyocera’s exceptional level of service whilst improving the quality of its print fleet. “On a scale of one to ten, so far I give my experience with Kyocera a ten,” says Ellie. 

Kyocera took over as SITA’s print solutions provider in January 2014. Since then, SITA has enjoyed a responsive relationship with the Kyocera team and continued to save 30% on its previous costs. SITA has also recommended Kyocera to other parts of the global business.

“On going out to tender, I did not expect to be bowled over as we were by Kyocera. It can be notoriously difficult to change providers but it was clearly the best business decision for SITA,” says Ellie.