Managed Print Case Study:
Star Pharmacy Group
"We're now managing our print costs with ease."
Star Pharmacy gained visibility and complete control of their costs while reducing their print spend by 27% with help from Enabl.
The Star Pharmacy story
Star Pharmacy Group is a leading Australian pharmacy organisation operating the Star Discount Chemist brand, as well as several independent and Priceline stores. Star Pharmacy has over 65 pharmacies across South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, and continues to expand year-on-year.
The challenge
In 2023, Enabl connected with Star Pharmacy Group about implementing our specialist solution for pharmacy & retail print management across their stores. As it turned out, this was a fortunate encounter, with Star Pharmacy’s rapid growth having led to a situation where many of their stores’ printers were unmanaged.
As is the case in many retail and pharmacy businesses, Star Pharmacy had a fragmented approach impacted by individual stores making their own decisions regarding in-store technology. They had also acquired many independent pharmacies that already had printers and other technology set up.
They had previously attempted to bring the stores’ printers under management, with some sites covered on a managed print agreement. However, continuous growth meant that these managed sites were the minority.
This put Star Pharmacy in a position where they had no direct visibility or control over the print costs of all their stores, with many overpaying for devices and consumables at retail prices.
Without centralised management and any toner monitoring in place, Star Pharmacy’s IT team had limited ability to support any printer issues. With a wide range of brands and models across their fleet, this became even more difficult. The stores had also taken on the burden of arranging servicing for their devices, as well as manually monitoring and ordering toner and other consumables.
A simplified solution
With a wealth of experience in the retail and pharmacy space and a strong partnership with Brother Australia, Enabl created a managed print solution for Star Pharmacy that focussed on control, cost reduction, and reduced workload for the stores. A successful pilot site implementation gave Star Pharmacy the confidence to give Enabl the green light for the complete rollout.
We deployed 170 new devices to their sites and took over the management of the devices that were on a centralised contract, with plans to replace them when they reach their effective end-of-life.
To simplify the management of devices and give Star Pharmacy full control over their printers, we:
- Standardised their fleet to 2 models from Brother - mono devices in the dispensary and an MFP in each store’s office
- Integrated the printers into the dispensary app
- Established printer monitoring – IT have visibility on printer issues and finance has full visibility over printer usage and costs.
- Set up toner automation – stores no longer need to manually order toner
Great things happened
After bringing on Enabl for their print management, Star Pharmacy reduced their print spend by 27% and now has full visibility and control over their print costs. They’ve cut down their print suppliers from 7 to 1 and cut the number of printer models from 17 to 3 (planned to be 2).
Enabl’s implementation of toner automation and device monitoring has cut down the manual workload and burden on in-store staff while enabling the IT team to support their stores with greater ease.
Considering the independent decision-making power that individual store stakeholders have, Enabl’s solution has had 100% commitment across Star Pharmacy’s Directors. Enabl’s project management team worked with the IT team to guide each store through a comprehensive site survey process, presenting the costs of the new solution, and rapidly rolling out the devices once approved.
Most importantly, Star Pharmacy now has complete control and visibility over costs. The finance team have direct access to printer page counts and costs at a store level, with the ability to attribute expenditure accurately. The team can rest easy knowing that their stores are using a solution designed specifically for pharmacy and retail and that they have the most cost-effective solution.
"With Enabl’s print solution, we've not only reduced our print spend significantly but can now easily manage our stores’ performance and costs. They’ve lightened the load on our team and given us the ability to support our stores remotely. Enabl guided us through every step of the way, ensuring a seamless transition and 100% adoption across our stores. We’ve got the right devices, uptime is great and it’s easier for our staff. Store teams are on board with a solution that frees them up to focus on providing important health services and advice to our customers. We’re very happy with the results."
Brendon Hore
Chief Technology Officer | Star Pharmacy Group