Customized Printer Maintenance Program Keeps QVC Tuned-In to Running its Own Business.
Problem:
Maintaining printers is no glamorous task. In fact, it's one of those necessary but routine "evils" that, while it may keep businesses up and running, garners very little attention - that is, until something goes wrong. Anyone who's ever had printer problems (and who hasn't?), knows exactly how exasperating such routine functions can be when they're non-functional. Electronic retailer QVC knows too well the value of keeping the little things around the office in working order. QVC introduces more than 250 new products each week to an at-home audience of more than 70 million. It's retailing operations run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And with annual sales of more than $2.5 billion, the company has a vested interested in keeping its 10,000-plus employees working at full steam.
 For example, at its corporate headquarters and state-of-the-art television studio in West Chester, Pennsylvania, QVC has about 1,000 printers that keep more than 2,500 local employees productive in managing the business and broadcast sides of its worldwide retailing operation. According to Bill Componova, vice president of production services, and the man responsible for a number of IT functions at QVC, the company had long searched for an efficient alternative for printer maintenance.
"In the past, we relied on the standard one-year factory warranties for our newer printers. After a year, we used a variety of approaches including local printing repair vendors, our existing computer repair vendor, and occasionally relying on our own in-house network technicians when they weren't busy with their core responsibilities," says Componova.
For QVC, the printer maintenance issue proved to be more of a challenge than these options could adequately address.
The Solution:
In 1993, the company began working with a new vendor, NRI Data & Business Products Inc., of Morrisville, Pennsylvania. NRI provides "end-to-end" corporate computing solutions to businesses located in the Northeast corridor, from Boston to Philadelphia. The company sells, installs and configures thousands of computing and printing products from more than 100 major manufacturers.
Holly Thompson, manager of procurement, and the person assigned by Componova to handle the day-to-day management of the relationship with NRI,cites a number of key advantages QVC noticed in working with the vendor. "Probably the most significant difference was that NRI was willing to structure a customized program to handle our printer maintenance needs, setting us up with an on-site technician on a three-day-a-week schedule to fix any printers that were down," notes Thompson.
Not only did the new agreement with NRI cover the standard break-fix arrangement for printer problems, but the vendor was also able to weave in a printer supplies program as well, thanks to its own successful printing supplies business. "Because the NRI technician is at our headquarters several times a week, they know exactly what types of printers we have, where they're located and what supplies we typically consume from week to week. They created for QVC a custom toner stocking program so we could eliminate printer supply problems from the start," she adds. "They even provided us with a customized billing system where we get only one invoice each month at a price that we've mutually agreed to, based on our past toner usage and repair history."
The bottom line for QVC is a "substantial savings on total repair and consumables costs. "Most importantly, printer downtime is greatly reduced and QVC's internal staff can focus more on core assignments rather than routine printer repair. "These days, I have more time to do my job, instead of constantly overseeing printing problems," Thompson reports. What's more, QVC now has a more accurate inventory based on the NRI technician's familiarity with their printing hardware.
On the question of responsiveness, a critical point for the 24-hour retailing giant, both Componova and Thompson agree that the NRI maintenance solution represents a great improvement over alternative methods they've used previously. Though the agreement covers a three-day on-site technician, NRI has been known to go "above and beyond" in handling emergency repairs, often fixing printers or delivering supplies on a same-day basis.
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