Case Study
Air Products
Founded in 1940, Air Products serves customers in technology, energy, healthcare and industrial markets worldwide with a unique portfolio of products, services and solutions, providing atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials and chemical intermediates. With operations in more than 30 countries and more than 20,000 employees worldwide, faxing is a significant part of the company's day-to-day communications. When Air Products needed a way to integrate its mail plan with enhanced desktop faxing capabilities, it chose Esker Fax Exchange as its enterprise-wide solution.
Challenge: Updating for Improved Coordination, Administration and Performance
As a result of using two faxing systems—Esker at its U.S. facilities and another system at its European locations—Air Products' faxing practices suffered from a lack of coordination, according to Dan Ruth, an information technology specialist at the company. "There was no coordination at all among the various servers. There was no central administration, no policies or standards." Ruth says that individual company units were installing systems that were integrated with specific desktops but not with the company's overall mail systems.
In its search for an enterprise-wide solution, Air Products had two key objectives. First, it wanted a sole provider of faxing services so that it could do away with as many proprietary clients as possible. Second, it wanted to integrate its mail plan with fax capabilities to turn every desktop into a fax machine. The latter objective was partly influenced by governmental mandates in some European countries that require companies to operate in a paperless environment.
Solution: Esker Fax Exchange
As a result of switching to Esker Fax Exchange for all its locations, Air Products has achieved its goal of turning every desktop computer into a fax machine. Ruth said that this change has benefited the company in a number of ways. One example he cites is in the area of mergers and acquisitions. "We were right in the middle of an acquisition and for this particular company faxing was a concern of the utmost importance," he explains. "The company's management wondered how we were going to interface their procedures with faxing. We said that it wouldn't be a problem once you're on our desktop. So that worked out very well."
Another benefit noted by Ruth of the organization-wide adoption of Esker Fax Exchange has been the system's flexibility. "We put out web pages instructing users on how to access faxing services. The ability to submit Microsoft attachments in Excel or Word has been very nice," he says.
Benefits
Ruth says a key benefit of its switch to Esker Fax Exchange has been the standardization of faxing practices and procedures. As an example, he points to the company's ability to set standards for fax cover sheets and to roll these out across the entire company. He also says that standardization with a sole faxing system provider will be a positive factor with future upgrades, as Air Products will no longer have to be concerned about "doing different upgrades at different locations."