Established for over 30 years, Look Ahead provides high quality accommodation, care and support, helping some of society’s most vulnerable people to live independently.

Working in partnership with local authorities and primary care trusts, Look Ahead supports over 5,000 people. It aims to enable the socially excluded people it supports to transform their lives in positive ways.

THE CHALLENGE

Six years ago Look Ahead had a fleet of more than 40 devices supplied and manufactured by one of London's largest and oldest copier companies. The copiers had become very old, poorly maintained and uneconomical. Look Ahead replaced them with 28 multi-function devices (MFDs) from M2.

Recently it has been looking to expand its printing and copying capabilities while reducing costs.

THE SOLUTION

Look Ahead has now signed M2 for a third term. M2 will increase Look Ahead’s MFD estate to 40, implement a managed print service and look after the implementation for the next three years.

Look Ahead's Procurement and Facilities Manager, Ben MacBean says, “M2 have been very flexible and responsive. Since we started working together we have always found them to be helpful and we had no hesitation in selecting them for a third term. We feel we can trust them to deliver.”

Look Ahead was able to access substantial savings from M2 through its membership of Procurement for Housing (PfH). PfH harnesses the collective purchasing power of its large membership base to ensure members always get value for money from high quality suppliers.

The PfH’s EU-compliant framework agreement for photocopiers and MFDs was developed in 2009 and awarded to three companies that supply copiers and printing equipment including M2.

THE BENEFITS

M2 was selected to provide MFD services for three more years. Look Ahead is now investing in eight more MFDs to expand its print capabilities. It has also signed up for M2’s Intelligence, which offers on-time consumables delivery and remote support.

The fleet device management solution for printers and multi-function devices Intelligence features a real time device monitoring system. This provides a proactive fleet management tool that delivers complete visibility of supplies management, fault diagnostics and management reporting, in-house and remotely. With Intelligence, organisations are assured that devices are proactively managed to deliver asset management, volumes and utilisation reports, toner usage and automated toner dispatch while identifying remotely device faults.

By monitoring all available network devices to obtain the status for each, the M2 Service Centre can highlight and alert in real-time information on meter readings, toner levels and error codes to repair.

Intelligence orders consumables such as toner as the MFDs require them, so there is no need to hold stock on-site. The wastage that can occur when stock is ordered and never used is reduced.

M2 supplies information on the usage of each MFD in a format specified by Look Ahead. “I find that information very useful and M2 are happy to provide it in a format to suit our needs,” says Ben MacBean.

He adds, “I have high hopes for the managed print service which is expected to save us 30% on our printing costs.”

“We have been with M2 for almost six years and look forward to continuing to work with them.”