XMA helps Komori keep the presses rolling!

XMA is ensuring that the IT systems of one of the world's biggest providers of printing equipment are as reliable as the presses it sells!

Japanese owned 'Komori' is a major manufacturer of lithographic printing machinery, with approximately 25% of the UK's print market. With around 100 people based between the head office in Leeds and their Southern office base in Swindon, Komori is a company that relies upon having efficient and effective IT systems.

Maintaining the IT systems was initially the job of Systems and Administration Manager, Martin Dowsett and another colleague, but as the company grew and with it the number of different systems employed and users dependent on them, it became clear that it was necessary to outsource Network and user support and bring in outside expertise.

Initially, Komori short-listed three IT solutions businesses, two large and one smaller company. They chose the latter - a local IT service provider that seemed to offer the ideal package of hardware and software support. However, it soon became clear that they were struggling to provide the level of support that the Komori users needed: "Within the first couple of months, staff were complaining that they were having problems with the system and were not getting resolutions to a growing list of outstanding problems," said Martin.

"When they left messages, they weren't getting called back and on top of this, some serious doubts about their internal procedures and technical competency in key areas of our Network were becoming evident. Confidence in the system was lost and I was again spending a lot of my time on trying to sort out users' IT problems. After about 4 months, we realised that we couldn't continue with the relationship and parted company soon after. It was clear we had to find a better, more proactive solutions provider."

After such a disastrous experience with their first service provider, it was vitally important to get it right second time around. "We needed to find a company that could not only provide all of our users with the day to day support that they needed, but could also maintain our Novell, NT and Citrix server environment," said Martin.

Martin had been told about XMA by one of his colleagues, whose husband - a teacher, had used the Nottingham based company to install and maintain an IT suite at his school. Specialists from XMA offered to help sort out the problems that Komori had been experiencing with the Novell server. They reinstalled the system, ironed out the 'bugs' and before long it was running smoothly again.

"Although XMA had done an excellent job and had more than proved their technical Novell expertise, a vital system requirement for us, we were still committed to the competitive tendering process. We went into a great deal of depth, examining the qualifications and experience of staff in each of the companies and making several site visits to each one. We were very happy with the set up at XMA and when all of the quotes were received, they were extremely competitively priced and won the contract."

XMA upgraded and reinstalled the Leeds servers and replaced the Novell and Notes servers in Swindon and stabilised the Network and remote access facilities. Komori's system users can now speak directly and immediately to specialists at XMA about any IT issues.

"I'm both delighted and relieved with the service we receive from XMA," added Martin. "After such a bad experience with our first service provider we just couldn't afford for it to happen again. With XMA, we get reliable support and a solid system. I feel comfortable with the people who we deal with and we all appreciate the fact that there are experts on the support desk who are on hand to help at any time. It has reduced my day to day IT support involvement and I can now spend more time on my core roles. Users can all now focus on selling and supporting our
products and customers, which, at the end of the day, is what it's all about!"