Field Service Engineers required in Essex, Hertford & Kent Areas
Requirements:
Previous experience required within photocopier industry preferably on Konica Minolta /Develop
though full training will be provided.
Employment info:
Attractive package
Full time Monday – Friday
Hours: 8.30am – 5.30pm (with 1 hour lunch break)
Holiday entitlement plus bank holidays
Company Car, laptop and mobile provided
To apply for this position please send your CV by email to:
hr@smartofficegroup.com
Role description:
Answering the phone to customers & our engineers
Logging & planning service calls using our service software Vantage Online
Toner monitoring & replenishing machine levels using PrintMib software & Vantage Online
Stock control – Maintaining core stock levels in warehouse & engineer’s cars
Raising & booking in purchase orders
Liaising with suppliers and third parties to book and chase third party calls
Requirements:
Previous experience ideally preferred in similar role within photocopier industry but not essential
Organisational skills
Quick & keen learner
Confident telephone manor
Ability to work in team and also independently
Computer literate (Particularly Outlook & Excel)
Attention to detail
Employment info:
Salary negotiable
Full time Monday – Friday
Hours: 8.30am – 5.30pm (with 1 hour lunch break)
Holiday entitlement plus bank holidays
Location: Wrotham
To apply for this position please send your CV by email to:
hr@smartofficegroup.com
Role description:
Dealing with customers & suppliers via email/phone
Input of supplier invoices onto system & checking against purchase orders
Making payments to suppliers
Customer contract set up
Obtaining meter readings via remote software and phone calls
Raising invoices to customers for usage and contract charges
Chasing payment from customer
Liaising with other departments to check information & resolve queries
Use of Service software, Accounting software, Excel and Outlook email
Keeping office area organised and tidy
Any other admin duties that should arise within the office
Requirements:
Previous experience ideally preferred in similar role within photocopier industry but not essential
Organisational skills
Quick & keen learner
Confident telephone manor
Ability to work in team and also independently
Computer literate (Particularly Outlook & Excel)
Attention to detail
Employment info:
Salary negotiable
Full time Monday – Friday
Hours: 8.30am – 5.30pm (with 1 hour lunch break)
Holiday entitlement plus bank holidays
Location: Wrotham
To apply for this position please send your CV by email to hr@smartofficegroup.com
We at Smart Office Solution Ltd are proud to announce the acquisition of ARC Office Systems Ltd, after trading for over 27 years, ARC’s outgoing owners Andrew and Kay Candler, have made this life changing decision to pass over their loyal and cherished client base and hardworking employees, to The Smart Office Solution Group. Personally, I would like to thank Andrew and Kay for choosing Smart Office as their preferred acquirer.
Smart Office will continue to provide the outstanding service that customers have had for many years, and I can promise that all of Andrew and Kay’s hard work and effort in building an amazing business, is in good hands.
This becomes the fourth and the largest acquisition in the last 14 months by The Smart Office Group, along with Chariot Office Automation Ltd, Document Office Technology Services Ltd, and KCS Print works, quadrupling the size of the business since 2019 and taking the group to one of the largest independent supplier and service of Office Equipment and MPS Solutions in the South East and across the UK.
For more information please feel free to contact us today. We look forward to speaking to and hopefully being of service to you.
Businesses of all sizes are always looking for ways to become more cost effective and save
money. One area where this can be done is by evaluating your office copier strategy –
specifically, whether using managed print services or self-serve copiers is more cost effective.
It’s easy to assume that having a managed service will be an expensive way of meeting your
print and copier requirements, so read on and we’ll explore what the costs really look like
compared to one another.
Self-serve copiers are, as the name suggests, copiers that you purchase outright and then
maintain and service yourselves. This usually means paying for toner and service calls as and
when they’re needed. On the face of it, this might seem like the cheaper option – but copiers
bought outright are usually significantly more expensive than those provided by managed print
services. This is because providers can buy copiers at a much reduced rate and then pass on
these savings to their customers.
When you factor in the cost of toner and service calls, managed print services are usually the
more cost effective solution – especially when you consider that providers will often include
these in the price of their service. So, if you’re looking to save money on your office copier
requirements, a managed print service is likely to be the best option. Here’s comparison for
example:
Self service example for one of our most popular copiers over 3 years:
| Toner | Black & White (20,000 copies per year ) | £490 |
| Toner | CYM (20,00 copies per year) | £5,600 |
| Service | Call Outs – Average 4 per annum | £1,000 |
| Total | £7,090 | |
| Per month over 3 years | £196.00 |
Smart Office Solution equivalent on a managed service agreement would cost you £65.00 per
month* and represents a saving of 67% per device! Plus, you’ll have peace of mind
that down time will be at a minimum as it will become our job to ensure your device is
operational at all times and unlike many manufacturers we guarantee we’ll be with you in 4
hours to resolve any issues.
Of course, there are other factors to consider when choosing a copier strategy – but from a
purely cost perspective, managed print services are usually the most effective solution. So, if
you’re looking to save money on your office copiers, it’s definitely worth considering a managed
service
If you’d like to find out more about Managed Print Services then feel free to get in touch with us
and one of the team here at Smart Office Solution will be more than happy to talk you.
*Price is based on minimal information and for example purposes only. Before any quote is provided an audit of your print requirements from one of our expert team will be carried out.
Saving energy and saving money is a popular combination these days, as we all look for ways to reduce our carbon footprint. Smart Office Solutions is here to help you with that, as we want to promote sustainable practices in your business as well as within ours.
By working with Papercut software we can provide you with all the tools you need to track, monitor, and analyse the print outputs within your business, whether you have 1 printer or 100 printers. Having this foresight as well as the handy tools provided such as ‘Responsible Reminders’ that alert your workforce when they could be using grayscale or duplex print or automated print queues to ensure no print is wasted will enable you to target the areas of your business practice that can be improved to hit your goals for carbon emission reduction.
As well as having these tools to monitor usage, we also have access to a host of other business support tools provided by Papercut.
Their reporting dashboard gives a live view of usage by user and printer, as well as your environmental impact. You’ll be able to use their secure and convenient print release tools to manage print queues and ensure that all print is always picked up and never wasted.
Mobility Print allows you to print from any device including smartphones to any printer on your desired network and with its seamless integration with Microsoft it’ll be the easiest set of tools to add to your stack and start doing your bit for the environment.
Having an environmentally friendly mindset within all areas of your business will ensure that you are providing the best service possible to the communities around you, while also ensuring that future generations can enjoy life on this planet without impacting it too heavily. For more information about how Papercut software can help you to become more environmentally friendly please contact Smart Office Solutions today.
Get to know more about Papercut Software and get in touch today to talk about how Smart Office Solutions can support you in achieving your environmental goals.
Get in touch to find out more about how we can work with you and use Papercut software to reduce your carbon footprint and hit your targets for helping the environment.
The world is on a mission to undo decades of releasing excessive carbon emissions through our everyday activities and we understand that many of our customers are measuring, monitoring, and aiming to reduce their carbon footprint. Thankfully, we are pleased to say that your office printers can have a part to play in this.
You might think that this is bad news for a business like Smart Office Solutions and that we’d not speak so openly about how you can reduce your carbon footprint. However whilst we are in the business of supplying printers and print agreements, we’re also keen to support our customers in achieving their goals and are leading on supplying technologies that support in meeting the same needs as a printer, and do so in an environmentally sensitive manner.
Gone are the days when you’d have to find the closest printer on the network and hope that it wasn’t being used by others, in most cases these days, printing has moved to a central print queue. This means that you can open up any device with access to your company’s network and send the document straight to the printer. What this also means is that if there are several people sending documents at once, they’ll all go onto one large print queue, rather than being sent directly to the printer.
In addition to streamlining the process for users, print queue management has also allowed for us to waste less paper, no longer will documents be printed and forgotten about, only to be thrown in the bin and re-printed at a later date. Releasing documents at the printer based on the user tapping a card or entering their code is not only more secure for confidential information but it also means that print is collected 100% of the time.
If you have any older printers in your inventory then it might be worth thinking about replacing them (or at least having plans in place to do so). Older machines are often still good enough for most day-to-day printing requirements but anything more than this and they’ll use more power than their newer counterparts.
When you do take the step to upgrade your assets, keep an eye on the power ratings and environmental standards of any printer that you either have or are looking at purchasing. Many manufacturers have a wide range of printers available in different sizes, resolutions, and formats which might suit specific departments within your organization better than others. Here are a couple of examples of the copiers that we stock and provide to support CO2 reduction:
Konica Minolta C300i – Built with state-of-the-art technology that ensures competitively low energy consumption – which saves both energy and money
Ricoh CM3000 – Operating at under 1,700w maximum, this copier is built for a greener world with a focus on reducing its carbon footprint.
In theory, it doesn’t seem like there would be much difference between using normal A4 paper from the high street compared to recycled equivalents from office suppliers but when you start to crunch the numbers in terms of print volume across a whole organization, this small difference can add up in a big way! If we were to print out a year’s supply of A4 documents for example for argument’s sake 30 sheets per day that would be 7,800 sheets for more sustainably sourced paper used.
The best way to make an impact is to start early and change your printing habits as much as possible. By encouraging conscious consumption of paper among your workforce.
As far as cost per sheet goes, there isn’t much difference between double-sided printing and single-sided but there are many benefits in terms of environmental sustainability. But just adopting this simple technique reduces your paper consumption by half.
This might not seem like much in the grand scheme of all things sustainable, but it does add up.
So to summarise, there are many ways to reduce your carbon footprint with your office printers, some include upgrading your hardware or software and some are more about upgrading your business practices, but whatever your goal Smart Office Solutions can help make sure that you are being as eco friendly as possible.
Following on from our blog on the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid working where we laid out the things that we’d learnt from supporting over 400 organisations with their office print requirements during the pandemic, we wanted to share some of the solutions that we have available to support printing for the hybrid office.
As we work with Papercut software to monitor usage and support you with CO2 reduction, we can also provide mobility print. This cloud based solution will allow you to connect any device to your office printers, allowing your team to add their prints to the queue and collect them when they are next in the office.
With Print Deploy and the Self Service Module provided through the Papercut software that we use you’ll be able to toggle the available printers for each user, this ease of access will mean that whether your team is working in the office or from an alternative location they’ll have the right access to the right printers regardless of their device or location.
We’ve always worked with our customers to ensure they have an oversight of their print usage, whether that be so that they can monitor their spend or report on their CO2 impact in an effort to support the environment. In our partnership with PaperCut, we utilise the Direct Print Monitor software that allows you to report on usage regardless of whether the device is in the office or at your team members home.
Did you know that we also have a copy shop, Smart Print Services is our specialist print house for all of your large format, large quantity or one off prints. Supporting you with a print and post service we can produce and distribute any of your printing needs whether it be meeting packs or client prints.
The thing that our customers have valued most about our services for the hybrid office is that we deliver the same support as we would in an office. Toners directly to the location of your devices whether that be at a satellite office or a member of the team’s home, technical support for those rare occasions that a machine might need some attention and all of the software needed to ensure the most efficient running of your print devices.
Get in touch to find out more about how we can work with you to ensure a smooth running of your printing and infrastructure.
Hybrid working is not a new thing for the work environment by any stretch of the imagination. However, over recent times the need to work remotely due to national lockdowns and the global pandemic has accelerated the requirement for organisations to increase their hybrid office capabilities and integrate remote working solutions into their infrastructure.
Working with businesses of all shapes and sizes, we’ve supported over 400 companies from those with one office printer to large multi-site corporations with thousands of employees through the pandemic. We already had the expertise to provide the solutions required but what we’ve developed throughout the journey is a much better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid working, here’s what we’ve discovered:
In a study carried out by Microsoft 9 out of 10 business leaders agreed that hybrid working was here to stay, but also 83% of them said that they found employees working in this way were equally as productive or significantly more productive when working outside of the office with just 1 in 10 business leaders believing that their workforce was less productive when working remotely.
It used to be the case that managers and business owners would fear that not being able to keep an eye on their employees would lead to a drop in productivity. However, with better visibility of output and productivity through modern tools and the feeling of empowerment passed onto staff the Microsoft report demonstrates that the opposite is true.
In fact by being able to utilise their time more efficiently, supported by working in an often quieter surrounding than an office space free from interruption and distraction and in a more relaxing environment which helps their stress levels.
Before the pandemic nearly 70% of people had never worked from home. It turns out that they didn’t know what they were missing out on as laid out in this YouGov survey where it was discovered that there was a 78% uplift in the amount of people that wanted an element of working from home post pandemic.
With people working flexibly from home or other locations, office occupancy is an opportunity to drive cost efficiencies. At the extreme end of the spectrum it could significantly reduce your overheads by a complete location change and reduction in footprint or a move to a cheaper location, or even at a smaller scale the operating costs of your office space could be leaner with energy usage dropping for example.
One thing that living through the Coronavirus pandemic has certainly heightened is a personal awareness of health & safety among the workforce. Whilst working in a more remote and hybrid manner has been imperative to slow the spread of COVID, it also has other positive health and safety impacts. It isn’t just COVID that doesn’t spread, reducing colds, flus and gastro illnesses will all reduce the impact of sick days out of the office on your business. In addition, with less people in the office, statistically the chances of other individual related health and safety concerns reduce.
Working in a remote manner often increases the risk of burnout, with the less obvious separation between work and home life often leading to people working longer hours and taking shorter breaks. Working from home often comes with a perception of mistrust and can make employees feel as though they need to prove their trustworthiness and as a result overcompensate and burnout. A shift from a culture of hours worked to something centred around productivity and output is often the key to reducing this risk and allowing people to work in a hybrid way guilt free.
Whilst working more flexibly can provide a significant amount of personal benefits and increase employee satisfaction, it can be at the cost of team building and rapport. Especially if a team works in completely different patterns it can lead to feelings of exclusion. Without the ability to have desk catch ups and shared lunch breaks, the best way to ensure that team building isn’t sacrificed for hybrid working arrangements, i to make sure that accessibility is key, ensuring meetings happen over networking platforms that enable remote sign in and even plan in regular informal online ‘hangouts’ to give people that opportunity to build rapport and get to know one another.
We’ve seen a meteoric rise in use of online networking platforms, video conferencing tools and technology solutions to support the hybrid office. However, many of us have had experiences of poor connection, server issues and software failures. Building a robust infrastructure that supports the access of multiple devices from multiple locations and with a phenomenal amount of use cases is one of the biggest challenges for maintaining a flexible and location-agnostic approach to your business. That said, with the right solutions and suppliers in place this can be managed effectively and should not be a barrier to reaping the rewards of all of the benefits of a hybrid working environment.
As mentioned in the opening we’ve supported over 400 businesses with their office print and infrastructure requirements throughout the pandemic. We’ve done this by being able to replicate their office set up in the home or any other working location. Providing devices that are more portable, using software that allows for the usage monitoring of multiple devices in multiple locations and delivering our same first class ongoing support and service regardless of where your workforce and print devices are located.
Get in touch with us today if you’d like to find out how we can support you with your office solutions.
We would like to welcome all of the DOTS clients with open arms to the largest growing independent print specialist provider in the Southeast of England. The purchase of DOTS is a large part of our growth plan around the UK. This latest acquisition for Smart Office Group is the second this month, along with Chariots Office Automation Ltd.
DOTS customers bring a very long history into Smart Office and with the loyalty to the outgoing owners David and Carol, they would like to thank all the clients and staff for all the commitment and loyalty over the last 14 years. The Smart Office Group would also like to welcome the valued staff members from DOTS into the Smart Office family, like Chariots the DOTS clients and employees are in very good hands.
The Smart Office Group of companies have tripled the size since 2018 through our organic growth and acquisition plan.
Further growth announcements to follow throughout 2021 2022.
Gary Smart
Founder and CEO of Smart Office Solution Ltd
To find out more or if you have any questions, please get in touch
