Releasing Staff Time for Reach plc with Aceni

Reach plc is the largest national and regional news publisher in the UK, producing and distributing content through newspapers and associated digital platforms. It’s Pensions Office are responsible for communicating pay to approximately 6,500 of the organisation’s pensioners.

The challenge

For almost 20 years the Reach pensions office printed and posted pensioner payslips. This manual in-house process took almost two days a month to complete. From a business perspective, this method of communicating pay was not cost or time efficient.

The manual process wasn’t only taking up valuable resources, it was at risk of failing. The hardware used for printing and sealing was reaching end-of-life, so investment in capital equipment was expected. The business was also going through restructuring, reducing office space, and the team needed to remove unnecessary machinery.

When a machine finally broke, it was time for change. Aceni, powered by Datagraphic, met the challenge.

We wanted the transition to an outsourced printing and mailing service to be seamless from the pensioner’s perspective. Our pensioners didn’t see any difference.

Group Pension Administration Manager, Reach plc

Results achieved

• A 2 day process reduced to 2 hours, the payroll file transferred to Datagraphic’s secure ISO 27001 accredited UK printing and mailing facility.
• Circa £8,000 saved, as no new machinery was needed to replace the failing internal printer and pressure sealer.
• Mailing costs reduced due to Datagraphic’s volume postal pricing.
• Future-proofed process. Reach able to switch to online payslips if desired, without any workflow changes internally.