Memjet finds benefits all around from using Box, within NetSuite, for file sharing and collaboration

By Brian Dirking

Where there are business processes, there are documents. For global print technology company Memjet, managing and tracking those documents were time and labor intensive. Memjet uses NetSuite for expense processing, customer management, and support management, and in all of these cases, Memjet had associated documents it wanted to link to NetSuite records.

Seeking Efficiency
For expense reporting, Memjet was looking for a faster and more efficient way of capturing receipts. “At any time, 20 percent of our company is on the road,” says Martin Hambalek, director of IT at Memjet. “Anything we could do to improve the expense report process could improve productivity for the company.”

Memjet is a supplier of fast color printer technology whose customers include such top companies as LG, Lenovo, and Canon/OCE. Part of the company’s marketing strategy is to provide rich, in-depth videos that show how its print technology works. These files were large—quite often too large to send via email. But, explains Hambalek, the problem went beyond file size limits. “Every time someone attached a file and emailed it out, we had to back up that file many times for each mailbox that received or forwarded the attachment,” he says. “It was costing us a lot in storage space.”

For customer support, sharing files was often done using FTP. “Every time our support team wanted to send out a file, they would have to email my team and ask us to set up an FTP folder,” says Hambalek. “We would have to constantly check disk space and make sure older folders were getting deleted. But the biggest problem was when the customer would try to retrieve the file using FTP. The FTP client would make their heads explode!”

Memjet needed an easier way to share files. The firm looked at a number of file sharing options, but settled on Box pretty quickly. They were impressed by how intuitive Box is to use, combined with how it is integrated into NetSuite. With Box, content can be associated to a record in NetSuite. Teams can organize content and proposals, put them in a folder, and share them. Then customers, partners, and suppliers can view and even collaborate on the shared files. The Memjet team can do all of this directly from NetSuite. Customers and partners don’t need to have NetSuite licenses to access and collaborate on the files.

“For expenses, we have flat-bed scanners, but people are even using their smartphones to take pictures of their receipts and email them to themselves,” notes Hambalek. “Box provides an email address for each folder, so users can create an expense report folder and email photos of their receipts into those folders for each trip.”

FTP servers and IT-provisioned FTP folders have given way to Box user accounts. Memjet uses NetSuite’s customer portal for post-sales support management. With Box integration, not only can customers access files that the Memjet team shares with them, they can also log in and, using Box, attach photos, documents, and reports on support tickets. Because it is so intuitive, customers don’t need any training or explanation on how to upload these files. “This is really taking IT out of the picture,” asserts Hambalek. “We’re more productive, end users are more productive, and we are more responsive to our customers. As we share content with external folks, enabling them to use Box without having to learn how to use our system is great.”

Beyond File Sharing
Memjet realizes that Box is more than just a file sharing solution. Box allows for enterprise content collaboration— enabling people to easily view and comment on documents and even make updates without getting out of sync, which was one drawback of attempting to share via email. Box provides many features that create a full collaboration experience including versioning, notifications, and access statistics.

With versioning, a team can always roll back to a previous version of a document. With notifications, collaborators are notified when a new version of a document is created. “We have built a number of business workflows around when a new revision of a file is created,” says Hambalek. “We’ve turned on notifications to let folks know when an update happens.

“One of the most valuable features is the fact that I can run reports and get details about content access,” says Hambalek. “We have 400 accounts set up in Box. In the last two weeks, 50 percent of the account holders have logged in and accessed content. But even on a user level, I can look at how quickly someone looks at a proposal or other document I have invited them to collaborate on. For our sales team, it gives them confidence about how engaged our customers are in the sales process.”

Also, by running Box in NetSuite, Memjet employees have access to more than 200 applications integrated with Box. Productivity applications such as e-signatures, print services, annotation tools, and other features are provided by Box partners, and these integrations are built right in for Box users.

You can learn more about how Memjet is using NetSuite and Box together by registering for this webinar:

Optimize Document Management and Collaboration with Box for NetSuite

About Author

Brian Dirking has been in the electronic publishing industry for more 15 years, formerly as Director of Business Development for Stellent, Inc., as Principal Product Director at Oracle, and now as Director of Product Marketing at Box. He speaks at many CIO and industry events, advising on content management issues. Brian is Past President of the Golden Gate chapter of AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management), and was previously on the AIIM Board.

The statements and opinions herein are those of Box and not of NetSuite. NetSuite has not verified any statements or claims herein and assumes no responsibility for such statements or claims.