Groenhuysen Foundation
The Groenhuysen foundation is a care provider in the Dutch Roosendaal region. They offer services predominantly for elderly customers, from convenience and comfort to intensive care, both in the form of home care as well as in their excellent care facilities. Around 2,300 employees and an additional 1,300 volunteers are committed to the everyday needs and the wellbeing of Groenhuysen’s 4,000 customers. The organisation was founded in 1993 with a merger of Charitas, a former guesthouse and various old people’s homes from Oudenbosch and the surrounding area. Groenhuysen has a semi-endorsed location policy, meaning that it connects 45 locations in the region under one roof. When it came to upgrading their MFP to ensure sensitive data is protected in compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Groenhuysen relied on the support of its long-term partner Konica Minolta.
As a care provider, Groenhuysen places its customers’ personal needs at the heart of what the foundation does, with its services ensuring their personal wellbeing and safety. In order to provide these services, they process sensitive information along the lines of medical history, medication use and financial insurance information.“Our everyday work constantly involves working with confidential and private data of our customers. Hence, ensuring that this sensitive data is protected in the best way possible and in compliance with the GDPR regulation was paramount for us in the search for a new security solution for our multi-functional peripherals”, explains Jeffrey Otte, Teamlead IT at Groenhuysen. This solution not only needed to be implemented at the foundation’s headquarters, but also at all remote facilities. As virtually all employees need to work with those devices, an implementation with as few as possible interruptions and following a clear schedule was key.
“Konica Minolta was our supplier providing us with our printing infrastructure since 2014, and we were highly satisfied with our working relationship. This is why, when it came to upgrading our systems, we immediately contacted Konica Minolta”, says Otte.
Konica Minolta not only quickly replied with the information required for the analysis this process entailed, but also proactively provided consultation on the possibilities and solutions to ensure all requirements are met in the best way possible. As all Groenhuysen locations were already equipped with the company’s bizhub devices, bizhub SECURE was quickly identified as the ideal solution for this purpose. Available for all of Konica Minolta’s peripherals, bizhub SECURE offers a protective measure package that contains unique, device specific administrator passwords, the encryption of the device’s hard drive as well as all information processed and settings for follow-me printing that ensure the documents can only be accessed by the authorised users. Despite the multitude of locations spread across the Roosendaal region, the entire printer fleet with 85 devices was updated within the set time frame of two weeks.
"When it came to updating our MFP systems for GDPR compliance and providing the highest level of data protection, Konica Minolta was our partner of choice. We are impressed by the solution provided, the hassle-free implementation and the results."
Jeffrey Otte
Teamlead IT, Groenhuysen Foundation
In this process, it was absolutely crucial that no data or settings were lost during the upgrade. Therefore, a backup of all systems was performed. Only then firmware was updated and the bizhub SECURE software installed. After this was done, the previous settings for follow-me printing and scanning, for example, were installed back on the system. This process was managed by three engineers from Konica Minolta. To ensure the customer had full transparency on which devices were updated when, a tight schedule was defined and followed. “We were highly impressed by the professionalism and efficiency of Konica Minolta’s engineers in this process”, explains Otte. “We had expected to encounter interruptions due to this transition and had sent out an e-mail to all employees preparing them for this eventuality. Yet, we are happy to say that there were hardly any interruptions and any complaints.”
Beyond ensuring the protection of their sensitive customer information, the foundation also received a certificate proving the GDPR compliance of its printing devices in audits. This enables Groenhuysen with evidence that proves that they have done everything to ensure the compliant and secure management of this information with Konica Minolta’s bizhub SECURE. “Overall, we are able to say we are completely satisfied with Konica Minolta’s support with this. We are very much looking forward to working together with Konica Minolta and are already in talks with regard to future projects, also beyond printing”, the foundation’s Teamlead IT concludes.