RIYADH, KSA, 18th October, 2015 — Kodak Alaris today announces that InfoFort KSA, an information management solutions provider in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has upgraded its high volume production scanners and deployed 25 new machines – a mix of Kodak i4250 Scanners and i5600 Scanners for its Saudi Arabia Operation .  This will support InfoFort’s rapid business growth in the region and ensure service availability for customers demanding tight SLAs[1]. Over the past five years, the volume of documents processed by the company has grown over 200%

The vast growth in scanning projects in Saudi Arabia has been driven by e-government initiatives, banks digitizing paperwork to meet regulation, security and compliance demands, insurance firms seeking to speed up claims processing, and hospitals scanning medical records to boost operational efficiency and enhance patient care.  

InfoFort is a fully owned subsidiary of Aramex, a global logistics and transportation provider listed on the Dubai Stock Exchange. InfoFort offers solutions that cover the full information life cycle and range from Records Management (Secure Document Storage & Management, Cheques Management), Electronic Records Management (Document Scanning & Capture, Electronic Document Management System-eDMS, ECM, Workflow Management & Automation), Backup as a Service & Tape Storage Management solutions, secure and certified Shredding & Data Destruction, Fixed Assets Management and Information Management consultancy

InfoFort is standardizing the scanning equipment used in its bureau with approximately most of all scanners now installed from Kodak Alaris.  Wissam Achmar, InfoFort’s general manager for Saudi Arabia and the Upper Gulf, says, “We started the upgrade process in Q4 2014 and ever since have been rolling out Kodak Alaris machines as new projects are won given the quality, reliability, and features of the equipment and availability of local service and support. Our investment so far exceeds $500,000.”

Local support from a global provider

The availability of local maintenance and engineer support was crucial. To cater for customers in the region, Kodak Alaris was the first scanner vendor to open facilities in Saudi Arabia given about 50% of the scanner market in the Middle East is located in the country. New service centres were opened in June 2015 located in the capital, Riyadh, along with Jeddah, Dammam and Khamis Mushait. 

Achmar explains, “On some jobs, our scanners are operating almost constantly and zero downtime is absolutely crucial.  Local assistance from the OEM is really important so we can ‘hot swap’ machines if required, get spare parts quickly and benefit from scheduled and reactive maintenance. Other scanner brands don’t last as well as Kodak Alaris, nor is their maintenance up to par.”

InfoFort’s staff also receive training from Kodak Alaris so they are better able to look after machines day to day without unnecessary engineer visits being required.

Once documentation is digitized, images are then exported directly into clients’ EDRM systems, transferred to intermediate storage platforms for customers to then download themselves or, in some cases, loaded into enVision InfoFort’s EDMS and ECM  available on Cloud, On-Premise and subscription basis .

Scanner performance is key as bureau margins are under pressure  

The requirement to purchase high performance and feature-rich equipment was also important for a service provider like InfoFort. The bureau business is highly cost competitive which impacts on margins, with customers typically demanding discounted prices and fast turnaround on projects.  

Achmar says “The only way to respond and stay profitable in this climate is to reduce our bureau’s operational costs to keep pace.  The Kodak Alaris scanners play a huge part in this.  We can get through more work because of their speed and reliability, as well as capitalize on all the features like Perfect Page and barcode recognition to enhance operator productivity.  Ultimately we avoid hiring more and more staff with all their associated financial overheads.”

Kodak i4250 Scanners are designed to process up to 110 pages per minute (ppm) with a recommend daily volume of 30,000 pages.  The more powerful i5600 Scanners have no click charges or volume limits and can churn through 170 ppm. 

According to analysts, InfoSource[2], Kodak Alaris has a leadership position in EAMER – based on market size - in mid and high volume production scanning and is one of the top 3 vendors in other segments including low volume production, departmental and workgroup scanning.

Achmar says, “Our relationship with Kodak Alaris is close and we consider them very much part of our team. Given their support, we can be more aggressive going after new business opportunities safe in the knowledge we can truly deliver.”

David Whitton, Kodak Alaris’ Middle East regional sales director says, “InfoFort has built its business based on reputation and a track record of success.  Central to this is its ability to meet service levels as agreed with its customers which in turn demands that the scanning equipment is up to the job and can keep pace.  That’s exactly what Kodak Alaris scanners are designed to do.”