Leek Building Society Enables Agile Working Across 12 Branches with Toshiba MFPs and PaperCut

Leek Building Society is a strong, independent mutual with 160 years of heritage, serving members across Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Shropshire. Its 12 branches and dedicated Customer Service Centre are focused on delivering exceptional service while meeting customers’ mortgage, savings, and insurance needs.

The Challenge

Many of Leek Building Society’s staff work across multiple branches on a daily basis, yet the existing print infrastructure was not designed for this level of mobility. Employees could not easily print at whichever branch they happened to be working from, creating inefficiency and frustration.

Document security was also a concern. In open-plan branch environments where customer-facing staff are visible to the public, printed documents sitting uncollected in an output tray represented a potential data risk. The organisation needed a way to ensure that sensitive documents were only released when the intended recipient was physically present at the device.

The Customer Service Centre had already been upgraded with the latest Toshiba MFPs and PaperCut software as part of a refresh, delivering improved visibility on print usage and lower lease costs. The question was whether the same benefits could be replicated across the entire branch network.

The Solution

Toshiba MFPs integrated with PaperCut software were rolled out across all 12 branches, with the solution piloted at a smaller branch first to validate the approach and ensure a smooth transition. Every device was pre-configured before delivery, and the deployment followed a structured process designed to minimise disruption to branch operations.

The PaperCut integration enables follow-me printing: staff send their print jobs to a single, cloud-based print queue and then release them at any device in any branch by tapping their fob or entering a PIN. Documents remain securely in the queue until the user authenticates, eliminating the risk of sensitive information being left unattended.

Dual-sided scanning and scan-to-file functionality were also deployed, significantly improving the speed of processing customer transactions and removing many of the manual, paper-based steps that had previously slowed operations.

The Results

At the Customer Service Centre alone, 2,500 documents were saved from being printed unnecessarily in the first 12 months. The organisation expects to replicate that result at branch level as the solution beds in.

Staff can now work seamlessly between any of the 12 branches, printing and collecting documents wherever they are. This flexibility has been a significant enabler for agile working, allowing the building society to deploy its people more effectively across the network.

The cloud-based architecture means there is a single print queue across the entire estate, simplifying IT management and troubleshooting. The infrastructure is scalable and designed to grow with the business, supported by ongoing recommendations from Toshiba.

Tim Hands, IT Operations Manager, highlighted the massive reduction in paper usage and the potential for similar savings at every branch. He noted that the service is built on reliable, robust hardware managed by a customer-focused supplier that provides exceptional service — exactly the qualities that a building society with 160 years of heritage expects from its partners.