PRINT MANAGEMENT
Citizen communications
Giles Hill of Sefas UK discusses how local authorities can keep a lid on printing costs and establish a personalised, multi- channel communications strategy.
ut costs. Improve service delivery. Be ‘greener’. These are key challenges facing local authorities in the current tough economic climate. Given this scenario, many have taken steps to minimise outgoings, such as phone and electricity bills and are looking at new ways to work more effi ciently.
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However, there is still one area that is often missed – citizen communication. In-fact, most local authority departments do not have a holistic view of spend in this area, or how to streamline their processes to make them more cost-effective or how to leverage new channels to improve delivery.
Millions of documents
Most local authorities print and mail hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages each year. Many of these documents are transactional, such as council tax bills, benefi ts statements, and so on. So the scope is there for not only doing things more effi ciently and saving signifi cant costs from a print perspective, but also fi nding new (electronic) ways to communicate with citizens.
At Sefas, much of our experience has involved working with large private sector enterprises – banks, insurance companies, telcos and utilities companies – to maximise effi ciencies and costs in their bulk-printing operations. We provide software which enables them to streamline their print processes and save costs, as well as establish personalised, multi-channel communications strategies that incorporate not just print, but also email, web and SMS text messaging.
In recent years we have recognised the opportunity for local authorities to derive the same effi ciency and cost benefi ts. Indeed, we’ve deliberately scaled our solution to make this happen.
Council makes considerable savings One example is Torbay
Council, which
recently selected Sefas’ Open Print software to enable signifi cant savings and improve effi ciency in its citizen communications. The council, which sends out over one million personalised communications a year, in areas such as housing benefi t notifi cations to council tax statements, reminder letters and so on estimates that its Sefas solution will enable savings of over £76,000 per annum through a reduction of postal and print costs.
The council will also benefi t from additional ‘soft savings’, including anticipated reductions in inbound enquiries, estate savings from the solution supporting remote working, and increased effi ciency due to automated processes.
As Guy Millward, pre-press manager at Torbay Council, told us recently: “We needed to fi nd a new solution that would be able to meet our future requirements and Sefas’ Open Print is the answer to our prayers. Sefas’ solution meets exactly the priorities set by our 30 internal stakeholders and is a truly enterprise-class solution that will enable us to send out timely and relevant communications, wherever staff are located.”
Of course, there is always a risk in implementing new solutions – and, as we know, most local
authorities are risk-averse. Torbay Council followed a rigorous tendering process and the Sefas software solution was selected for a ‘proof of concept’ implementation in August this year. Millward added: “We plan to complete a phased roll-out of the solution across all council departments, from fi nance to HR, by April 2013. The business case that Sefas helped us make was compelling in terms of savings and productivity gains.”
The fact is, while Sefas’s solution has hitherto been regarded as a ‘large-scale solution’, we have proved with the implementation at Torbay that it can also meet the demands of local authorities.
Multi-channel approach
There is no getting away from the fact that public sector organisations have traditionally been highly paper-intensive. Although paper won’t go away as a communication medium, the need to make information available electronically, in line with the e-Government and environmental agendas, means that local authorities must have in place the systems that can meet citizen expectations for information to be accessible in whatever format they require, whenever or wherever they need it.
Even in the best of times, local authorities can often struggle to make their citizen communications timely and effi cient. Today, it’s even more critical. Sefas believes that it’s about reducing or eliminating manual processes, reducing reliance on the IT department and ensuring that document- centric communications with citizens can be produced easily and cost-effectively.
We’re already helping many local authorities to meet these challenges. The question is: are you ready to meet them too?
Giles Hill is general manager at Sefas UK, a leading provider of software for creating, producing and managing personalised customer communications.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
T: +44 (0) 117 906 9920 E:
contactuk@sefas.com W:
www.sefas.co.uk
public sector executive Sep/Oct 12 | 65
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