Supporting strong growth for a global business
What do the colonnades on St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota have in common? They have all been cleaned with equipment produced by German manufacturer Kärcher. A family-owned company based in Winnenden, Germany, Kärcher offers high-pressure cleaners in 67 countries for every type of cleaning job.
The company has been growing steadily for years. In 2017 alone, 500 new employees joined the global Kärcher family, which currently totals 12,300 members. Kärcher plans to continue expanding, but in such a dynamic period of growth, it becomes more difficult for stakeholders to keep track of which new hires need what tools.
The company wanted flexible purchase options to help facilitate improvements without breaking the budget. With a three-year Enterprise Term Licence Agreement (ETLA) for Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, Adobe’s trusted, reliable and complete solutions for PDF-based document processes, Kärcher benefits from an adaptable deployment model that supports the company’s rapid growth. The company is already planning on extending its use of ETLAs to include other Adobe solutions.
Standardising on global solutions for global processes
As a global company, Kärcher has many internal processes and projects that operate on an international level. To make processes as efficient as possible, all stakeholders should use the same technologies and solutions to prevent compatibility issues.
Over the past two years, Kärcher has made efforts to standardise its software environment and centralise licence management. Most licences are now purchased and distributed by the company’s global headquarters. While centralising licences allows Kärcher to plan procurement more efficiently and keep track of inventory more easily, working on such a large scale has also affected planning.
No matter how carefully demand forecasts are created, it is difficult to accurately estimate the number of licences needed for a quickly growing company. But buying individual licences every time an employee needed new software wasn’t an ideal solution either. The administrative effort involved in purchasing and managing individual licences would have a major impact on both productivity and company growth.
Kärcher found the dependable and strong partner that it needed to accommodate its changing licence procurement needs in Adobe.
Predictable budgets with a three-year ETLA
Adobe was one of Kärcher’s first worldwide IT partners. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is integral to many processes at Kärcher. As a robust yet easy to use PDF editor, Acrobat has a long track record of reliability in helping employees create high-quality PDF files.
The security features in Acrobat are optimised for enterprise use. Users can protect documents with passwords or certificates. Digital IDs help identify senders and a malware sandbox prevents harmful files from entering the corporate network. Acrobat also empowers Kärcher to adopt customised or company-wide policies to help ensure consistent use of security settings.
“From the creation of user guides and other documentation to advertising and marketing collateral, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is an essential tool for us,” says Achim Höfel, IT Service Manager Global at Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG. Operating from the company’s headquarters, Höfel is in charge of global procurement and distribution of software licences.
Working with an ETLA allows Kärcher to better understand and predict software budgets every year. As part of the agreement, Kärcher benefits from a flexible licensing limit. If the company experiences strong growth, it may exceed the number of licences agreed upon in the ETLA in order to keep up with actual software needs.
Kärcher may also deploy its licences anywhere in the world, without any geographical restrictions. Any additional licences beyond the ETLA limits are invoiced when the agreement expires. As licences are not tied to a user or workstation, Kärcher can adjust licensing to accommodate changing usage patterns, such as employees’ growing adoption of one or more mobile devices.
