The South Africa-based bank chose the London-based company in a competitive tender and has charged BMC with completely overhauling document management based on a “next-generation” storage and archiving facility. This will be a huge job, said a spokesman for BMC, although the value of the contract was not disclosed. Standard Bank Group claims to be the largest African bank in assets and earnings, operating in 17 countries on the African continent and 13 countries outside Africa. Total assets are worth $203bn. BMC said with the remit of the bank growing, the contract would “be on a grand scale.” The new system will encompass the complete document life cycle; from physical management, capture of content, indexing, secure storage and easy retrieval, right through to secure destruction. BMC will provide an onsite librarian to manage the archive. It will also provide three on-site DTP operators to help produce presentation documents and look after digital assets. The service is due to be rolled out across the whole bank. BMC managing director Catherine Burke said: “We’ll be putting in place systems and processes, across the whole document life-cycle, which will be truly state-of-the-art, including presentation services and storage and archiving.” She added: “It’s a monster job and a big challenge, bringing together different service lines, which will involve a little bit of inspiration and no doubt perspiration. I can’t disclose its worth, but the deal makes Standard Bank one of our most significant customers. It’s a very important piece of business. “All organisations like ours use similar types of scanning and storage technology, although we will tailor elements to the client’s needs. It’s about combining the right software and hardware with the right people that have the right processes.” Standard Bank head of corporate services Ruth Hansen said: “The project is on a large scale, quality is at a premium, and it is essential new solutions don’t compromise continuity. We therefore needed a supplier to bring us bang up-to-date. “It must deliver against stringent industry compliance standards and best practices. BMC will ensure seamless implementation of new systems and transform our document management and DTP processes in terms of speed, accuracy and efficiency.” This is the latest in a series of high-profile, lucrative wins for BMC. Last October is signed a three-year contract for marketing print and warehouse services for pension firm Friends Life and a year ago it won a £10m document-management deal from insurer Hastings Direct. BMC, which was born out of AccessPlus and the former BPO arm of The Print Factory, was acquired by Office2office five years...

The South Africa-based bank chose the London-based company in a competitive tender and has charged BMC with completely overhauling document management based on a “next-generation” storage and archiving facility. This will be a huge job, said a spokesman for BMC, although the value of the contract was not disclosed. Standard Bank Group claims to be the largest African bank in assets and earnings, operating in 17 countries on the African continent and 13 countries outside Africa. Total assets are worth $203bn. BMC said with the remit of the bank growing, the contract would “be on a grand scale.” The new system will encompass the complete document life cycle; from physical management, capture of content, indexing, secure storage and easy retrieval, right through to secure destruction. BMC will provide an onsite librarian to manage the archive. It will also provide three on-site DTP operators to help produce presentation documents and look after digital assets. The service is due to be rolled out across the whole bank. BMC managing director Catherine Burke said: “We’ll be putting in place systems and processes, across the whole document life-cycle, which will be truly state-of-the-art, including presentation services and storage and archiving.” She added: “It’s a monster job and a big challenge, bringing together different service lines, which will involve a little bit of inspiration and no doubt perspiration. I can’t disclose its worth, but the deal makes Standard Bank one of our most significant customers. It’s a very important piece of business. “All organisations like ours use similar types of scanning and storage technology, although we will tailor elements to the client’s needs. It’s about combining the right software and hardware with the right people that have the right processes.” Standard Bank head of corporate services Ruth Hansen said: “The project is on a large scale, quality is at a premium, and it is essential new solutions don’t compromise continuity. We therefore needed a supplier to bring us bang up-to-date. “It must deliver against stringent industry compliance standards and best practices. BMC will ensure seamless implementation of new systems and transform our document management and DTP processes in terms of speed, accuracy and efficiency.” This is the latest in a series of high-profile, lucrative wins for BMC. Last October is signed a three-year contract for marketing print and warehouse services for pension firm Friends Life and a year ago it won a £10m document-management deal from insurer Hastings Direct. BMC, which was born out of AccessPlus and the former BPO arm of The Print Factory, was acquired by Office2office five years...

The increase in price will apply to Sappi’s coated and uncoated flexpack paper, siliconising base papers and label papers. The company cited sustained increases in input costs, including pulp, chemicals and transport, saying that the price rise was needed to restore margins. Implementation of the price adjustment will be addressed in the coming weeks with Sappi Fine Paper Europe clients on an individual basis. A spokeswoman said: “We believe our markets are strong enough to be able to sustain such a price increase.” The move follows similar price increases initially announced at the end of last year across Sappi’s graphic paper range, which came into effect in February this year. Meanwhile, the same price increase across the rest of its coated fine paper range came into effect in February. Earlier this month Sappi’s global Q2 financial results illustrated the impact of the weak market conditions, particularly in Europe, with an operating profit excluding exceptional items of just $40m (£26m) compared with $125m in the same quarter of 2012 and $73m in the quarter to 31 December. Sappi chief executive Ralph Boettger said that market conditions for the paper businesses, particularly in Europe, were expected to continue to be weaker than previously envisaged. He added: “The price increases in Europe, to date, have not been sufficient to restore margins given rising input costs. Despite the interventions and major cost reductions that have taken place, we expect the European business to only achieve a breakeven operating profit excluding special items for the full year.” Boettger warned that the poor performance would necessitate “further action” and that the company was currently “evaluating a number of options that could result in capacity and cost reductions in our European business”. In April, both Metsa Board and Arjowiggins Graphic also increased prices of their wood-free coated papers, also citing the rising cost of raw materials....

The deal, which is a UK-based arrangement at the present time, was announced at North Print & Pack yesterday (14 May) and forms part of Konica Minolta’s ‘Digital 1234′ business development programme. “The market told us they needed an entry-level web-to-print solution, and with Vpress our customers don’t have to worry about high upfront investment costs,” explained Mark Hinder, Konica Minolta market development manager for production printing. “It’s a business model that allows people to enter a market with easy adoption, with quick, easy steps to start enabling new business,” he added. Konica Minolta will offer Vpress Coreprint, the cloud-based web-to-print system. Coreprint is available in various options, from an entry-level system up to the highly-configurable ‘Pro’ version for power users. It currently has around 1,500 customers for the system, across more than 60 countries. There is already a Vpress connection with the wider Konica Minolta operation because its systems are also used by print management firm Charterhouse, acquired by Konica Minolta in November. Vpress managing director Tim Cox said web-to-print had evolved into “web-to-whatever-you-want”. “It’s not just a nice to have, it’s a necessity. If you don’t have it, you can’t procure work that way,” he stated. Konica Minolta will still work with other vendors as part of the Digital 1234 programme. The firm also showed an upgraded version of the Bizhub Press C8000 at the show, the C8000e. This will supersede the old model and will ship in July. It has new features for greater uptime, included a reduced requirement for service visits. The £150,000 80ppm device has a duty cycle of 500,000 prints per month, and also comes with a new frontend, EFI’s Fiery FS100 Pro colour controller, which is twice as fast as the previous option....

The deal, which is a UK-based arrangement at the present time, was announced at North Print & Pack yesterday (14 May) and forms part of Konica Minolta’s ‘Digital 1234′ business development programme. “The market told us they needed an entry-level web-to-print solution, and with Vpress our customers don’t have to worry about high upfront investment costs,” explained Mark Hinder, Konica Minolta market development manager for production printing. “It’s a business model that allows people to enter a market with easy adoption, with quick, easy steps to start enabling new business,” he added. Konica Minolta will offer Vpress Coreprint, the cloud-based web-to-print system. Coreprint is available in various options, from an entry-level system up to the highly-configurable ‘Pro’ version for power users. It currently has around 1,500 customers for the system, across more than 60 countries. There is already a Vpress connection with the wider Konica Minolta operation because its systems are also used by print management firm Charterhouse, acquired by Konica Minolta in November. Vpress managing director Tim Cox said web-to-print had evolved into “web-to-whatever-you-want”. “It’s not just a nice to have, it’s a necessity. If you don’t have it, you can’t procure work that way,” he stated. Konica Minolta will still work with other vendors as part of the Digital 1234 programme. The firm also showed an upgraded version of the Bizhub Press C8000 at the show, the C8000e. This will supersede the old model and will ship in July. It has new features for greater uptime, included a reduced requirement for service visits. The £150,000 80ppm device has a duty cycle of 500,000 prints per month, and also comes with a new frontend, EFI’s Fiery FS100 Pro colour controller, which is twice as fast as the previous option....