The Summary
Printing may seem like a routine office task, but it consumes more resources than most businesses realize. In addition to the paper, ink, and machines, outdated printing systems can also consume time. If print servers are constantly offline, they disrupt business processes. These hidden costs underscore how outdated print systems can silently drain productivity and resources.
Blackwoods experienced these challenges firsthand before partnering with Vasion to modernize its print infrastructure. The results were transformative: The company saw dramatic improvements in speed, significant cost reductions, and minimal disruptions across the company’s nationwide operations.
Customer: Blackwoods
Blackwoods, part of the Wesfarmers Industrial & Safety division, is one of Australia’s largest suppliers of industrial and safety products. With approximately 2,300 staff members and a heavy reliance on high-volume printing operations, its IT environment faced significant challenges related to legacy print infrastructure.
With staff across 70 sites, the company relies on high-volume printing to manage freight, dispatch, and distribution processes. As IT Operations Manager Matthew Horvat explained, “We are a very paper-driven company. We do a ridiculous amount of printing…we’ve got about 800 to 900 printers across the country.”
Industry: Industrial and Safety
The Challenge
Delays, Unreliable Printing, and Frustrated Employees
Before implementing Vasion, Blackwoods’ legacy print environment created bottlenecks that slowed down critical operations, including print time. The outdated printing system was unable to keep pace with business needs and proved frustrating to employees.
“One of the primary pain points that we saw was when doing our freight management printing, particularly, we were seeing huge delays upwards of two minutes to print a single job,” said Horvat. “Particularly in the dispatch space, that delay adds significant time pressure to their work order—so much so that they would click the button and then walk away.”
– Matthew Horvat, IT Operations Manager, Blackwoods
Login times were another pain point. Overloaded group policies tied to legacy print servers caused delays of up to 45 minutes just for an employee to sign in. “We were seeing 45 minutes in some situations for someone to just log into their computer. Unbelievable,” Horvat added.
In addition to performance issues, the company faced rising costs and inefficiencies from maintaining multiple licensing models and platforms, as well as significant administrative overhead.
The Solution
Cloud-Based Secure Print
Blackwoods partnered with Vasion to eliminate these legacy constraints and modernize its print management approach. One of the primary reasons Blackwoods chose Vasion was that Vasion Print eliminated the need for centralized printer deployment on a server, instead moving that deployment to the cloud, which allows for easier local printing.
Following a successful site-level proof of value, the company rolled out Vasion nationwide. Key elements of the solution started with Vasion Print’s cloud-based, agent-driven print management platform. Vasion replaced the unreliable, slow, and fragmented legacy print system Blackwoods had. Vasion’s solution helped centralize administration, grouping, and reporting for hundreds of printers.
The rollout was quick and seamless. With no project manager required and minimal disruption to end users, the transition was straightforward across all 70 sites.
“I still didn’t believe it until I did it,” Horvat recalled about the deployment timeline. “We did it within about a month.”
Since going live with Vasion Print, Blackwoods also replaced a solution from a different vendor with the Advanced Security Add-on from Vasion to give them additional flexibility with releasing print jobs. It was a seamless rollout, allowing Blackwoods to consolidate two products and two vendors into a single solution.
The Results
The Advantages Blackwoods Gained With Vasion
1
Faster Print Times
Printing speed improved drastically. “What we saw was a 95% reduction in print time,” said Horvat. The jobs that had previously taken two minutes now took only two seconds. No longer did employees leave a print job because they were frustrated by its slow speed.
The print jobs were more reliable, too. With their legacy system, Blackwoods employees were unaware of when printers were online or offline. Every print job was a gamble to see if the printers would work. However, Vasion was far more reliable. Vasion’s alerting and reporting mechanisms within the platform are helpful in identifying and fixing issues quickly.
2
Quicker Logins
Employee login times improved by over 80%, resulting in a significant reduction in long delays. This made a significant impact on the employee experience and most users no longer even have to think about it.
Horvat emphasized that, as a business that sells and ships physical products, all its business KPIs revolve around getting goods out the door. The faster employees can sign in and access the information they need, the faster they can return to their other tasks and keep goods moving.
3
Cost Savings
By moving from a per-user to a per-printer license model, Blackwoods reduced licensing costs by 60% to 70%. In addition to being a financially smart choice, the switch also saved them time and hassle by providing seamless printing.
“[Our previous solution] posed a licensing challenge because it was licensed per user. We couldn't accurately allocate the right number of users. We were seeing a lot of wastage from the licensing model because we'd have to add a user to get printing, even if they only wanted to print one time.”
– Matthew Horvat, IT Operations Manager, Blackwoods
4
Lower Administrative Overhead
Blackwoods’ legacy systems took a lot of time and effort for their IT team to run. After switching to Vasion, their team’s administrative overhead dropped.
“For someone who doesn’t really enjoy managing printers and has to manage a lot of them, it makes it hugely beneficial,” said Horvat. “We can get away with a single administrator dealing with upwards of a thousand printers, and all across the country, with no-touch deployment. We even deployed over into China without any challenges!”
– Matthew Horvat, IT Operations Manager, Blackwoods
Horvat also highlighted the impact on IT operations saying, “It’s reduced our administrative overhead significantly. We can now logically group our devices into buckets, and they get allocated based on the site that they are in.”
Eliminating print servers reduces attack surface, making it easier for the Blackwoods IT team to maintain cybersecurity and protect company data.
5
Exceptional User Experience
End users noticed the difference without ever needing to understand the backend. The transition to the Vasion Print management solution was seamless. Without any major delays, Blackwoods was able to improve its experience for employees.
“They’re just super happy. They don’t know what’s there. We don’t need them to know it’s there,” Horvat said.
Modernize Printing and Boost Your Business With Vasion
By modernizing its print environment with Vasion, Blackwoods eliminated the inefficiencies of legacy infrastructure and gained tangible business benefits. Faster printing, quicker logins, and significant cost savings improved day-to-day operations and freed IT teams to focus on higher-value work. For Blackwoods, Vasion delivered more than just new technology—it provided a streamlined, scalable solution that supports the company’s nationwide operations and future growth.
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