Challenge
For Phillis Real Estate, success means handling a lot of documents, from promotional flyers, contract proposals and signed documents. Alex Phillis, the founder of the business, had previously engaged with a printer reseller who signed him for a 5-year contract on a second-hand A3 machine. He was also charged a minimum volume per month regardless of the use of the printer. As the pandemic hit, the problems of this arrangement were exposed.
Firstly, all real estate contracts are in A4, so there was no need for an A3 machine. Secondly, given that most of the team was working remotely, the large A3 printer sat in the office with a much lower use, costing the company money. Having this machine became very expensive.
Solution
Adrian Smith from OfficeFix, a Lexmark Authorised Channel partner, approached Alex Phillis and offered to assess the situation of his company, Phillis Real Estate. Adrian realised that 98% of the company’s printing volume was done in A4 with an average of 3,000 A4 pages per month. He offered help to provide a better deal for the company that would be flexible enough under any market conditions.
OfficeFix offered a different charge model, where Alex’s company would only be billed for the use of toner. On top of this, Alex decided to buy the A4 machine outright – a Lexmark A4 XC8160– using the accelerated asset depreciation benefit introduced by the Australian Federal Government earlier this year as one of the measures to support small businesses through the COVID-19 emergency.
