Print in the Channel - issue #6

EKM PROFILE

grow, hopefully exponentially, in that region.” In the UK, EKM Global is growing its managed print services software, including technology to ensure it can integrate with more back end purchasing systems. “There’s a lot of ERPs out there, especially in Europe, and we plan to get integrations with those,” Ian says. “We’re also constantly adding more features into the programme. We’ve got some larger features we’re adding in now, but after that we’ve got a whole roadmap of incremental gains, which, when you’re talking about things that occur in large volumes are really important. If we can reduce the time to do a job by 10 seconds or reduce the number of clicks to complete an action – for example, if you can take ordering a consumable from three clicks to two clicks and you’re doing that 1,000 times a day you reduce the time it takes for that operator to work the system. And if you can reduce it to zero clicks then you’re laughing, which is our goal on a lot of these things. These things really build up savings over time. “We work very closely with our distributors and resellers and the bigger ones we have one-to-one sessions with, and we ask them what they want, and this is something that often comes up.”

the summer, will enable customers that have Power Bi – an interactive data visualisation software product developed by Microsoft – to pull data from their ERPs and from the Insight software and merge the two together. “This will be incredibly powerful for them. Some customers already do it now, either through direct links into the data that we’ve provided for them, or they use reports that we’ve created. But putting a Power Bi connector is just going to make it easier for them to just drag and drop what they need, whereas now, they must do a little bit more work on things like SQL. This is what customers have been asking for.” Sustainability Sustainability is another increasing concern for customers, and EKM Global is helping them to recycle and reduce their carbon footprint. “We’re partnering with people to look at the new European directives on recycling of consumables and things like that,” says Ian. “We’ve also got some programmes coming on board that will help with that green agenda in terms of recycling inks and toners as well. We’ve also got things like a mobile app that uses augmented reality support to help customers with the maintenance of their print portfolio, which helps to reduce the number of times engineers must travel to a customer site, thereby reducing carbon emissions that would have been created by driving a van there.” With so much going on, the future for EKM Global is bright – especially with the backing of a global players such as TD SYNNEX – and Ian is looking forward with confidence as the company continues to provide what customers want.

A lot more customers are micro analysing their data, looking at the yields, from toners and such like, are those customers getting enough clicks to modify it? We’re providing a lot more reports to people to do that. “

Analysis Customers are also increasingly asking EKM Global for solutions to help them to micro analyse their data. “A lot more customers are micro analysing their data, looking at the yields from toners and such like, are those customers getting enough clicks to modify it? We’re providing a lot more reports to people to do that.” Ian adds that upcoming releases, slated for

printinthechannel.co.uk

13

Powered by