21 years old – keys of the door?
Well, that was quicker than I expected!
21 years ago, on the 8 December 2000 the company that we now know as PAE Business was formed. For the first for years of its life it was known a Digital Workplace Services, in 2004 it became Print Audit Europe, and in 2018 evolved again into PAE Business ltd.
The name changes reflect the evolution of our market and customer requirements. Digital Workplace was born out of the opportunity to move for analogue photocopiers and single function printers to the Digital MFD/P and the potential cost savings this created. Our partnership with Print Audit Inc in Canada began in 2002 and quickly became such a positive partnership that we became the European arm for Distribution of PAFM in 2004 evolved into Print Audit Europe. Print Audit Facilities Manager was one of the first CLOUD HOSTED (cloud was not popular concept then) services for remote Device Management. Interestingly the others FM Audit and PrintFleet along with PAFM are all part of the ECI Solutions stable and now dominate the market with twenty million devices under management globally.
We built our business and reputation for excellent service and support on the foundation of our device management platform. We opened PA France in 2005 and PA Germany in 2011 and have strategic partners in all the major European countries helping over 700 resellers manage their printer fleet more efficiently and deliver cost savings to the bottom line.
In 2012 we launched the first SAAS pricing model in our market wrapping up User and Device Management software – the Premier Programme offered even more value to our customers as they began the move from capital sales to recurring revenue, which is now growing daily.
In 2018 as it became clear that office printing was under threat from digitalisation we evolved into PAE Business and broadened our portfolio to add more opportunities for our Partners to diversify and add alternative revenue sources to their portfolio. which has made the last three years very exciting -introducing Business Analytics, Predictive modelling, Workflow transformation and Cloud infrastructure to name but a few of our new additions to our portfolio.
So, what for the next 21 years – ECI have continued to develop our Device management Platform and we will launch Printanista in the New Year – with its Remote Device link capability it is a game changer for dealer help desks and support operations. We are introducing a new Marketing platform and continuing our excellent partnership with EveryonePrint and Upland Software, so the future is looking incredibly positive.
All that remains is thank all the customers who have been with us on our journey – our first reseller partner was Canotec, an assessment license ordered by Mr David Newman– who are now Agilico and still use our services. I would also like to extend thanks to our brilliant people who have delivered on our promises and fantastic suppliers whose innovation we have relied on for the past 21 years.
Phil Madders – Director, PAE Business
About PAE Business
PAE Business was founded in 2000 and is a leading solutions and services provider in the MPS (Managed Print Services) / MCS (Managed Content Services) sector. PAE Business works throughout the EMEA region offering award-winning applications and services to its clients to give their businesses a competitive advantage.
