As much as the business world has
turned into a digital atmosphere,
the value of paper has lessened,
but not disappeared. For a worldwide brokerage such as Lockton,
gaining control of the printing
process made their operations run
more efficiently.
Lockton is the world’s largest
privately-owned insurance brokerage firm providing insurance,
risk management and employee
benefits solutions globally. With
close to 5,000 associates worldwide,
the company operates in 64 locations across 17 countries.
Lockton did not go searching for a printing solution,
according to Simon Hodgson, senior support analyst of the
technology division at Lockton.
“The issue initially came to our attention when we were trou-
ble-shooting some performance issues within our EDI environ-
ment,” says Hodgson. “We had an interesting conversation with
one of our Citrix partners and UniPrint came up. We resolved the
unrelated issues and then we decided to take a look at some of the
printing issues and began to look closely at UniPrint.”
Lockton decided the printing issue was worth further
investigation, explains Hodgson, who inherited control of the
printing environment in Lockton’s London office. He described
himself as “a bit of a novice with printing,” but knew enough
to tell that what the brokerage was doing wasn’t adequate with
what was needed for the virtual desktop environment so he
arranged a demo on UniPrint’s Infinity universal printer driver.
One of the main drivers behind Lockton’s need for a universal printing technology was slow printing speeds for some of
the broker’s regional offices in the UK, according to Hodgson.
“It was a bit of a headache,” he says. “One of the first reasons
we started to look at UniPrint was because it helps to print
faster. Another issue was the lack of central management within
our environment.”
Another of UniPrint’s features is it helps manage the print-
ing process. Previously, Lockton had numerous print servers
and hundreds of print policies, explains Hodgson.
“Now you put it in one print console to manage the environment,” he says.
Hodgson reports Lockton is fully aware of the drive to go
paperless over the last decade, but he doesn’t believe it is happening fast enough to handle Lockton’s needs.
“It’s a sensitive subject with users,” he says. “You realize how be-
spoke everyone’s printing needs are. It is probably the same as other
businesses because everyone still seems to be printing quite a lot.”
Lockton wanted to attack slow print issues and Hodgson
explains that was addressed in UniPrint’s proof of concept.
“The administrative overhead was going to be a big
game-changer,” says Hodgson. “You don’t have driver updates
all the time or need to implement a new printer model. You
could see the positive effects it would have on the company.”
The solution doesn’t force a single printer model, although
moving forward Lockton is considering standardization of its
printers, according to Hodgson.
“We have a lot of brands—you name it,” he says. “You can
imagine the management of all that compared to having a fleet
of one brand in the office.”
The solution solved the printing speed issue, but Hodgson points
out the Infinity product empowers users and allows them to manage
their own printing issues, such as adding printers to their section.
“In the past they had to call a support team to do that, but
users can go to the PrintPal option in the notification area and
add the printer themselves rather than calling the service desk
to do that,” he says.
Hodgson was surprised to see how easy it was to implement
the UniPrint solution.
“The great thing about the software is it was easy to get up
and running,” he says. “It was also easy to add printers and us-
ers. Since I was learning printing technology and deploying the
software, it helped me get my head around the software.”
Having the UniPrint solution will enable Lockton to study
the printer environment and update and refresh it without look-
ing at how to administer it and the work involved there.
“We can literally stick in a new device, publish it, and it is
in the user section,” says Hodgson. “Before we had to manually
sync drivers. It will help on that front to no end.”
Hodgson has been impressed by UniPrint’s performance,
particularly since it is a small company.
“The support and personal touch during the rollout has
been good and the support staff has been excellent as we got
this off the ground,” he says. “I’ve had nothing but a good experience with them.” ITA
The Printed Word
With offices in 64 locations, Lockton needed a solution that could manage
the printing environment and improve printing speeds.
Simon Hodgson
