WALSALL COUNCIL DRIVES CITIZEN- CENTRIC SERVICE TRANSFORMATION WITH KONICA MINOLTA CLOUD SOLUTION CHALLENGES

Walsall Council is transforming the way its public services are delivered through its PROUD Programme. This will ensure that every service – from social care and finance, to street cleaning and planning – is delivered as effectively and efficiently as possible. It will lead to better outcomes and customer experience, increased staff satisfaction/ engagement and performance.

Elizabeth Pearson, IT Project Manager, Walsall Council said:

“By digitally enabling our work processes, we are ensuring council services keep pace with the changing needs of residents, communities and local businesses. The cloud is an intrinsic component of this transformation strategy, it means we can develop and deploy modern digital services faster and more cost effectively.”

This Cloud First strategy was brought into sharp focus when the time came EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CUSTOMER PROFILE for Walsall Council to replace a legacy document management application. Walsall Council is embracing new Walsall Council is one of fourteen The software was supporting high- technology to put residents at the councils in the West Midlands region volume print services, including council centre of its services and customer and by population is the largest tax invoices, election polling cards and care. Improved ICT delivery across metropolitan area outside Greater other customer correspondence. council services is a huge part of the London. The borough of Walsall is council’s transformational PROUD located immediately north of Elizabeth added: “We took the decision programme and one which endorses Birmingham, with a population of to move to PlanetPress in order to a contemporary ‘Cloud First’ 253,499, and is one of the four ‘Black automate more processes and cut approach. Country’ boroughs along with down on manual, repetitive print tasks.” The council is therefore working closely Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell. with its long-term partner Konica Minolta to meet customer expectations and need at speed. The company is “We took the decision to already providing a ‘hosted print move to PlanetPress in application’ to support the essential order to automate more delivery of high-volume print processes processes and cut down for council tax invoices and polling cards. This transformative cloud on manual, repetitive solution delivers a modern, citizen- print tasks.” centric service that also reduces costs. Elizabeth Pearson , IT Project Manager, Walsall Council

2 SOLUTION PlanetPress resides on a Konica Minolta - Peace of mind: The service requires cloud server, located in a highly resilient no intervention from council staff. Step forward Konica Minolta. The UK-based Konica Minolta data centre. They simply connect to the company has been a trusted partner to The council links to the server via a PlanetPress workflow automation Walsall Council for almost seven years, secure VPN connection. The Konica through a VPN line. All issues of server providing more than 100 multi-function Minolta team was responsible for the upgrades, patching and other devices (MFDs) and associated server deployment, integration and maintenance are conducted software at multiple sites across the subsequent training. transparently by Konica Minolta. Borough. The council has also standardised on two Konica Minolta - Digital transformation: The hosted production colour devices and three BENEFITS, RESULTS, print solution aligns closely with the production mono devices within its ROI, FUTURE Walsall PROUD programme for print room, which offer the versatility to Konica Minolta’s future-facing managed service modernisation and efficiency. print a wide range of products for print solution dovetails closely with Elizabeth concludes, “Konica Minolta is internal and external customers. Walsall’s PROUD programme for playing a vital role in helping Walsall “Konica Minolta has been collaborating process transformation, delivering Council modernise and streamline with our team for more than a year to benefits in many areas: critical work processes that enable support the roll-out of PlanetPress,” - Quality of service: The new service is sustainable business delivery. By says Elizabeth. “At the start of the available 24x7x365, ensuring council making use of a managed cloud service project Konica Minolta recommended tax and other important document and simplifying day-to-day work, we we deploy PlanetPress on one of their services continue uninterrupted, with can increase efficiency, which will fully-managed Konica Minolta cloud no compromise to the day-to-day improve customer service and drive servers.” operations of the council. down costs.”

According to Elizabeth, Konica Minolta - Efficiency: As a hosted service, there was the right choice for this forward- is no up-front capital expenditure by thinking approach. “We trust the the council in hardware or support. “Konica Minolta is playing Konica Minolta team implicitly,” she The service is provided as a fixed-fee, a vital role in helping says. “They understand our business covering hardware, connectivity, and technology goals, they are always security and ongoing maintenance. Walsall Council thinking ahead to the next stage of the modernise and streamline project, and they consistently deliver - Innovation: The managed solution critical work processes supports the cloud first strategy proactive, expert support.” That that enable sustainable specialist knowledge and partnership which allows the IT team to focus on approach shone through when it came other development such as public business delivery.” to advising on the performance and service innovation. Elizabeth Pearson , scalability of the hosted environment. - Agility: The cloud management IT Project Manager, Walsall Council Elizabeth continues, “PlanetPress is a framework provides greater complex system – it manages tens of operational agility and the flexibility thousands of council tax bills, for to identify, analyse and respond example, and often needs to print quickly to changes in PlanetPress high volumes of polling cards at short document workflow. notice. We relied on the experience - Data security and governance: The and insight of the Konica Minolta team service is hosted in a highly resilient to recommend a server that would data centre, with data backed up in cope with sizeable data processing two locations. The data centres are and data flows.” UK-based, supporting the council’s governance objectives regarding data privacy and security.

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Konica Minolta Business Solutions UK Ltd, Miles Gray Road, Basildon SS14 3AR www.konicaminolta.co.uk 08/2020