How Everywhen solved its continuity conundrum with Apogee
Everywhen, formerly Ardonagh Advisory, is one of the world’s leading independent insurance brokers, bringing together best-in-class entrepreneurial and specialist brands serving customers across the world. The company spans across 30 territories globally – with over 200 offices and 10,000+ colleagues. Its expansive scale, alongside its inherent understanding of the communities it serves, allows it to work closely with a network of insurer partners to deliver effective outcomes to its customers.
Since deploying several Apogee services over a five-year period across its UK broking operations, Everywhen has significantly transformed its respective workplace operations. It has achieved 28% contractual savings from a reduction in costs for equipment, paper and other stationery, streamlined processes for staff to free up working hours, and enabled service continuity under a hybrid working approach.
In 2019, Everywhen recognised a need to reduce its outgoings by moving away from a CAPEX model for its printers across its UK broking sites. As an organisation focused on building a sustainable business, purchasing new equipment was unnecessarily expensive. The first project was for Apogee to rollout new printers under a cost efficient and more flexible leasing model.
Just as the new model was being implemented, the Covid-19 pandemic caused the business to completely rethink how it would communicate with internal and external customers while employees worked from home.
With no one able to access the in-office printers, it wasn’t just a challenge to figure out how internal and external documents could be printed and posted to other offices and clients, but there was also no way to intercept incoming mail via the post at every one of its 100 office locations. This would have then presented problems in the long-term as hybrid working later became the new normal.
“With all our employees previously working on-site, we came to realise that without access to our office equipment, we hadn’t devised an effective business continuity plan to deal with home working, and later down the line, a hybrid working scenario. We needed a long-term solution to enable employees to complete tasks when they didn’t have a printer to hand."
- Donna Nuth, Head of Supplier Management at Everywhen
Alongside the existing project to deploy new printers under the leasing arrangement, Apogee worked closely with Everywhen to incorporate OneSource - a fully outsourced service. This enabled colleagues to digitally deliver documents to Apogee, which were then printed and sent out in the post on the company’s behalf. This involved a dedicated team at Apogee who would print the documents, split them up manually and create mail packs that would be sent out via Royal Mail.
Apogee also acted as Everywhen’s PO box. All incoming mail from other offices was rediverted to Apogee. Apogee staff would then review the received document, scan it and upload it to a cloud-based system so Everywhen employees could retrieve it on demand and action it accordingly.
While these benefits initially helped the business navigate the restrictions posed due to the pandemic, it also eradicated the need for its people to return to the office full-time. It went on to act as the organisation’s long-term business continuity model as hybrid working was implemented as a permanent strategy.
Fast forward to 2023 and, to further enhance its business continuity capabilities, Everywhen then focused on its hardware. The business entered a leasing arrangement for new laptops to join the established printer setup. Where employees had to previously rely fully on in-office devices, the firm is gradually supplying portable laptops to enable them to flexibly work between the office and home.
The OneSource model has led to a range of advantages since the relationship began and continues to improve everyday efficiencies for the business. It not only enabled service continuity but has also freed up staff to concentrate on other tasks, such as contact time with clients, which can now also be completed from home or the office. Physical letters no longer needed to be checked or manually prepared for posting.
The organisation was able to drastically reduce its paper footprint and the amount of stationery needed, thereby leading to significant cost savings. From a security perspective, there were no documents containing potentially sensitive client financial information that were physically moving around the office.
By entering the leasing agreement for both its printer setup and laptops, Everywhen can provide its workforce with access to the latest technology, without dealing with obsolescence, while at the same time benefitting from a more cost-effective solution. The comprehensive and ongoing support services provided by Apogee as part of the agreement also ensure continuous IT uptime for the business and mitigate any regulatory risks associated with disposal and replacement.
With the success of the OneSource rollout, Everywhen is now working with Apogee to incorporate its AutoMail solution to further streamline and secure its incoming and outgoing document processes, as they project significant annual cost savings of 19%.
AutoMail is a fully automated solution that allows employees to digitally attach documents to a print driver for printing at the Apogee site. Human contact time is kept to a minimum as only one Apogee member of staff needs to gather the documents and put them in an envelope inserter. This device then automatically sorts documents into the correct mail packs and seals envelopes for posting.
Nuth sees a bright future ahead for the company’s digital strategy and the role that Apogee will play in it, adding: “Apogee is a safe pair of hands that we have come to fully rely on over the years. We’ve already made huge strides in reducing our overheads, paper footprint and reliance on in-office equipment as we embrace a long-term hybrid working model with full business continuity. Looking ahead, we very much see Apogee as a part of our digitalisation plans for the future.”
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“Our OneSource solution had proved very effective for Everywhen, but due to the sensitive nature of the documents they handle, AutoMail will add that extra layer of security for peace-of-mind.
The solution automatically checks information such as the postcode of the addressee, so the business can be rest assured that documents with personal information aren’t being sent to the wrong location. This could otherwise lead to data falling into the wrong hands."
- Gavin Castelyn, Strategic Client Director at Apogee Corporation
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