Nashua celebrated a number of big wins in the education sector last year in both highschool and tertiary institutions across the country.
These institutions included the University of Cape Town (UCT), North West University (NWU), Tshwane University of Technology, The Open Learning Group and Maritzberg College where Nashua rolled out purpose-built managed print and document services that resulted in a printing cost saving of between 10 and 30%.
“Prior to Nashua’s involvement, none of the educational institutions we partnered with had this type of infrastructure in place,” says Gareth Jay, Strategic and Business Development manager at Nashua.
“These institutions approached us because they were looking for solutions to a number of difficulties and inefficiencies they were experiencing with their printing infrastructure. Wastage was a problem, as was creating revenue from student printing and allowing students to print off mobile devices connected to the network,” says Jay.
In the case of an institution like UCT, which has over 25 000 students enrolled and employs over 5 000 staff members across six faculties , Nashua was brought in to install systems to accurately track the number of pages printed on each device connected to the University network.
By doing this, UCT was able to not only move printers to where they matched users’ requirements, but also to institute “Follow Me” printing, where a user’s print job is held in a queue until that user swipes their card at a printing terminal. When users swipe, their documents are released and that user is simultaneously charged for the print job.
Topping up the credit on a swipe card can be easily done at cash boxes on campus, or can be done online, thus making the entire process cashless and considerably more efficient.
Students and staff are also able to print from devices such as laptops, desktops, tablets and smartphones, at any time from any place provided they are connected to the university network.
“Implementing solutions like these is only the beginning. Where Nashua really comes to the fore and outperforms the competition is in the after-sales support and service we offer as part of the package. Nashua ensures that there are on-site resources put in place to manage and maintain the solutions that we implement.
“Most of the installations that we have done are fully outsourced services, so there is no responsibility or liability from the university or educational institution for the services,” says Jay.
Following their successes last year in the education sector, Nashua is looking to extend their reach to even more schools and universities in 2014 with a special focus on private schools in and around SA. Such is Nashua’s commitment to this goal that the company is even training vertical-focussed Nashua franchises on how to put business plans together that are tailored at the education market.
“Though we are barely one month into the year, we are already putting a tender together for a big university with plans to approach many more over the course of the year. The time and cost-saving benefits of the solutions we offer speak for themselves and we are excited to grow this side of Nashua’s business for the mutual benefit of both Nashua and, more importantly, the institutions we partner with,” concludes Jay.
