National firm Cobbetts, which has a sizeable office in Birmingham at 1 Colmore Square, has cut its costs with a new paper-saving printing deal – the latest move in a year that has seen the company try to get its trading back on track.
Cobbetts signed a deal with M2 Digital that saved it £45,000 from its print costs by implementing a fully managed print service across the firm’s offices.
Following a full electronic and physical audit of the firm’s current printing processes, M2 said it could assess the true cost of print services, enabling it to restructure the systems to maximise efficiencies. A consolidation of the number of printers, from 157 to 47, allowed a more streamlined approach to document management, saving the firm both time and money. Paul Leyland, the head of internal services at Cobbetts, said: “While we were aware that our print services could be improved, we were surprised and pleased by how much could be saved by maximising efficiencies when it comes to managing our documents.
“By consolidating our systems, M2 has allowed us to cut a huge amount of waste that we were not conscious of.”
Cobbetts has seen a number of high-profile successes from its Birmingham office, with particular success in the corprpoate market, where it is recognised as one of the leading firms for AIM flotations, a sector that has need a number of new arrivals from mining and excavation companies.
But it has also seen financial trouble during the recession. At the end of last year, staff in the corporate and real estate departments were put on a four-day working week after seeing a drop in the amount of available work.
At the time the firm said the move was a temporary one until revenues started to increase again in those working areas.
The roll out of the document management system took place nationally across Cobbetts’ offices in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester, and included its subsidiary company, Incasso.
John Taylor, the managing director of M2, said: “It was clear that Cobbetts could make a marked saving by making simple changes to its print services. We implemented a case management system by writing a tailored Norwell code to enable all scanned documents to go directly into the relevant employee’s system. This not only saves time but increases security surrounding client documents.
“Since the restructure was completed eight months ago, Cobbetts has saved £45,000 through print and time saving efficiencies. The seamless integration from front to the back office has also led to a huge 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions.”
