Posted on Tue, Dec 14, 2010
In-plant print centers – four trends to address for success in 2011 and beyond
By Tim Kelly, SVP, and Elisha Kasinskas, Sr. Marketing Manager, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
In our four-article series: “Corporate in-plant print centers – four trends to address for success in 2011 and beyond,” we’ve talked about marketing the print center as a necessity, print center convergence, and what in-plants can do to make it easier to do business with them than outside providers. This article focuses on the final trend we will discuss in this series – the requirement of continually improving workflows to meet changing customer demands.
Customer Demands for Shorter Print Runs and Faster Turn- Around Times Necessitate Continually Improving Workflows
Remember the sign of the man laughing with the caption “You want it when?” You may even still have one in your print center. Today, this is no laughing matter. Customers expect faster turn-around times than ever before, and they have many alternatives. Digital printing and streamlined workflows make it possible for you to satisfy your most demanding customers.
Workflow is a broad category. For our example, we will look at how an effective Web-to-Print solution can dramatically improve your workflow and help you to meet growing customer demands.
Seven Ways to Improve Customer Ordering Workflow and Improve Satisfaction Rates
Simplify customer workflow and enhance customer satisfaction by doing the following:
- Streamline job submission. Provide clear direction for users to upload documents and complete job tickets, such as single-page job ticketing, available with WebCRD™. One customer’s results have been amazing. According to Steelcase Inc’s Al Schmidutz, Manager of Output Services, “Prior to a web-to-print solution 30%-40% of the work came to us electronically. Now, 95% of the work originates in WebCRD.”
- Simplify requests by including only the finishing options, paper stocks, etc. that you want to offer in your print center. Offer only “intelligent print options” to prevent users from ordering conflicting options such as binding on a one-page document.
- Provide shortcuts for frequent users to speed up their ordering process, such as presets (pre-defined job ticket options).
- Make catalog orders and re-orders easy. Include thumbnail views so users can verify they have the right document prior to ordering.
- Provide email updates and on-line access to check order statuses, eliminating time consuming phone calls for updates.
- Provide on-line proofs, including finishing options, to eliminate hardcopy proofs for most orders. One such proof is WebCRD’s SurePreview™. This proofing process increases customer satisfaction, eliminates mistakes, and makes customers more comfortable ordering higher value jobs from their Print Center.
- Provide user training so they adapt quickly to the new system and experience its benefits. Many of our customers provide training, in a variety of formats, ranging from in-person, to PDFs, to videos and podcasts, for their users (see image).
*WebCRD’s SurePreview provides users with a virtual job preview prior to ordering to ensure satisfaction with the order, and reduce errors. This instant proof saves time and eliminates a hard copy proof process.
Workflow Improvements in the Print Center also Increase Efficiencies and Improve Turn-Around
Increase print center productivity, improve job turn-around, and lower production costs by implementing the following to improve workflow efficiency:
- Receive print-ready PDF files. Provide users with a PDF print driver, ideally based on Adobe® PDF JobReady™, with the presets you require for your print center. Users see a proof and you have a print-ready file. Steelcase, Inc. saw a 30% reduction in job turn-around time using a PDF workflow. In 2009, it took an average of three days to turn around a job. Within a year of deploying WebCRD, that average had dropped to two days.
- Automate the flow of repeat orders and defined types of orders. RSA’s WebCRD has a feature called AutoFlow. Print centers define jobs by name, type, or source and automatically send these to the appropriate printer, without operate intervention. One customer, Lincoln Public Schools, processes over 27,000 jobs per month, made possible by automatically flowing jobs to the print center using the AutoFlow feature.
- Eliminate job re-ticketing. The Web-to-Print solution should be able to create the appropriate job ticket for each printer. Many systems provide the file and a job ticket and require the operator to enter the ticketing information. Don’t settle for less; make sure the jobs can be sent directly to each of your printers without re-ticketing.
*At Lincoln Public Schools in Lincoln, NE videos and other training tools are offered to WebCRD web-to-print users.
All of these will reduce the number of times that an order is “touched,” allowing your print center to “do more with less.”
Finally, you can also gain valuable time in your print center by automating billing and reporting. This can substantially reduce the number of hours you spend each month handling this task—hours better spent serving your customer. Think of all the additional marketing that you can do with those “found” hours!
Learn more about how other corporate print centers have improved their workflow to meet the demands of their customers. Or, contact us for a Print Center Assessment to review your Print Center workflow and practices to be sure you are meeting your customer’s needs.
What’s Your Opinion? Last Chance to Take our 90 Second Survey to Let Us Know
Take this quick survey and share with us how these trends are impacting your business, or provide your feedback. Everyone who takes the survey will be entered into a random drawing for a $50US American Express gift card. Results of the survey will be published in December, 2010.
If you would like the entire article series, please visit our sign-up page.
Posted on Tue, Nov 30, 2010
In-plant print centers – four trends to address for success in 2011 and beyond
By Tim Kelly, SVP, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
In our four-article series: “Corporate in-plant print centers – four trends to address for success in 2011 and beyond,” we’ve talked about marketing the print center as a necessity and print center convergence. This article focuses on what in-plants can do to make it as easy as possible to work with them.
Make Ordering and Delivery Easier than the Local Office Supply Store or Printer
Is your print center growing? Are you adding capabilities for your users as printer costs decrease and capabilities increase? Are you experiencing rapid growth in color printing?
A key requirement to saying “yes” for each of these questions is the need to making ordering and delivery easier than with your competitors. Today, the competition is FedEx Office, other overnight carriers and local delivery agents, national office supply superstores with local stores, as well as local and national printers.
How do you make it easier to do business with you than with any of the competition? The first step is using a Web-to-Print solution designed for corporate in-plants. This is a business requirement today. Users demand the convenience to order forms, catalog items and submit ad hoc documents from their desktop or home 24 hours a day.
You have an advantage. You know your users. As noted in the first article of this series, on “Marketing the Print Center,” you should meet with users on a regular basis to understand their needs.
Seven Key Ideas to Make it Easy to Do Business with Your Print Center
- Make it fast and easy for repeat users to place orders, by using features like defaults and single-screen job ticketing for users.
- For repeat workflows, offer pre-sets for the most common or popular workflows to make it easy for users. Blue Valley Unified School District in Overland Park, KS, offers pre-sets for popular jobs, and even provided a flyer to users to promote the feature (see image).
- Take advantage of repeat jobs with pre-defined workflows to automate print production and enable faster turn-around times.
- Offer variable print and color to increase the value and effectiveness of users’ documents.
- Improve customer communications by providing real time job status or adding other communications to your web site such as a chat feature like Rancho Santiago Community College District in Orange County, CA has done (see image) .
- Provide immediate on-line proofs to increase customer confidence, and reduce errors and turn-around times. RSA’s WebCRD™ features like SurePreview™ enable users to view documents prior to printing, including all finishing options, covers, and tabs.
- Personalize your service. Instead of spending time tracking down job requirements, sending proofs and responding to status calls, you can use your time to build relationships and understand user needs.
Use Web-to-Print Software Tailored for In-Plants and Corporate Print Centers
If the web-to-print software you use for job submission is tailored to corporate print centers and in-plants, it should help you to be easy to do business with. RSA’s WebCRD is designed specifically for in-plants. In addition to helping print centers in the above seven areas, our customers, who service hundreds of thousands of users, have experienced these results:
- Increased print volume without increasing staff—capture jobs that were going to outside print providers. Automated workflows reduce operator “touches,” enabling more volume without adding staff.
- Increased customer satisfaction— customers love 24-hour access, instant virtual proofs, and having order status right at their fingertips.
- Expanded capabilities—most companies experience an increase in color volume as well as in variable data printing.
Take advantage of your in-house position and make it even easier for users to use the corporate print center! Learn more about how other in-plants have improved their efficiency and made it easier for customers to do business with them by listening to the free “Print Stimulus” webinar.
Our final article will discuss continually improving workflow to meet ever-increasing customer demands for shorter print runs and faster turn-around.
What’s your take? Let us know in our 90 second survey
Take this quick survey and tell us how these trends are impacting your business, or provide your feedback. Everyone who takes the survey will be entered into a random drawing for a $50US American Express gift card. Results of the survey will be published.
If you would like the entire article series, please visit our sign-up page.
Blue Valley Unified School District in Overland Park, KS, offers pre-sets in their web-to-print workflow for popular jobs, and even provided a flyer to users to promote the function (see image).
Rancho Santiago Community College District in Orange County, CA makes it easy to work with them by using a “chat” function on their ordering site and plan to add an introductory video as they roll out WebCRD web-to-print to users.
Posted on Tue, Nov 16, 2010
In-plant print centers – four trends to address for success in 2011 and beyond
By Tim Kelly, SVP, and Elisha Kasinskas, Sr. Marketing Manager, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
In our four-article series: “Corporate in-plant print centers – four trends to address for success in 2011 and beyond,” the first article reviewed marketing the print center as a necessity. Printer capabilities and the work that is physically produced in the print center have changed, due to changes in technology and methods of communication (both with customers and internally). The result is print center convergence – the consolidation of data center printing and the traditional in-plant/CRD printing. This article focuses on print center convergence.
In-plant and corporate print center convergence
At RSA, we’ve seen the trend of print center “convergence” continue, and in fact, accelerate. Convergence has actually been the result of several underlying trends, fueled by technology changes and a new budget-driven, efficiency-focused approach to printing inside enterprises.
Let’s look at the individual trends and their impact on convergence on an in-plant print center.
Data centers getting “out of the print business”
Many in-plants have been the beneficiary of data centers deciding to “get out of the print business” and have the in-plant handle all enterprise printing. The result has been a consolidated print center that now handles ALL of the print for an enterprise, saving organizations critical budget dollars and streamlining the print process.
This convergence has worked because the workload is often complementary, lending itself to a two-shift operation and creating better asset utilization. Workflow and data stream conversion software have enabled data center printing to mid-range and production printers or conversion to PDF format for archiving and viewing.
Data Center Printing requirements are specific, and sometimes specialized
Data centers have specific requirements for printing:
- Print legacy data streams, such as LCDS, Metacode, and IPDS.
- Smooth transition from channel-connected printers to TCP/IP from the mainframe.
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Security, as print jobs often have sensitive account or customer information.
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Controlled re-printing or subset printing of print jobs, driven by either security needs or production efficiencies.
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Stringent up-time requirements both for hardware and software, driving printer design toward equipment with longer service cycles and useful life, and development of software that runs on reliable software platforms.
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100% printing fidelity—converted documents need to look exactly as they do when printed in the data center.
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Splitting, indexing and document management integration to both protect and repurpose proprietary documents for sharing, viewing, and reprinting.
Corporate and In-Plant Print Center adaption for data center printing
In order to accommodate these needs, production print centers have adapted their printers and workflow software to incorporate these requirements. For example, production printers now often have the ability to run data stream conversion software, such as RSA’s M.I.S. Print™, co-resident as a background task. There is minimal operator intervention and print jobs are run at full rated printer speeds. Other adaptations of software to transform data center printing might include: conversion and printing of LCDS and IPDS data simultaneously, highlight or full color support, a number of different connectivity types (TCP/IP, Channel and ESCON), resource management with automatic distribution to multiple printers, and integration with workflow software.
Offset to digital convergence
The trend of offset jobs moving to digital print continues as customers demand shorter runs, faster turn-around time and variable data within jobs. A drive to increase efficiency and decrease “touches” in the production area has also had a large impact on the consolidation of print centers. With every new technology, existing processes and workflows have been revisited, presenting the opportunity to further efficiencies brought about by the new technology and changes occurring in both the industry and customer companies. In our fourth article, we’ll discuss in greater detail the trend of continual workflow improvements.
Organizations like American Fidelity Insurance run transactional, data center applications, along with catalogs and color brochures, every day in their print center. RSA’s workflow software manages the diverse jobs from different sources. The workflow efficiencies enable them to handle more volume on production printers without adding staff.
Re-purposing transactional data
New customer demands for information contained in transactional and data center printing have required “unlocking” and re-purposing this data so that it can be used in new ways. By transforming transactional data into formats such as PDF, TIFF, or PostScript, this data becomes more accessible and even more useful to an organization.
The City of Baltimore combined a green initiative with document re-purposing, using RSA’s PDF Pro™ to convert data center output to PDF and distribute it electronically. The Mayor’s Office of Information Technology (MOIT) reduced monthly print volume and made city documents more accessible and easier for customers to use. Converting documents to PDFs made the information viewable and printable, maintained the required document fidelity for MICR characters and scan-lines, and identical official signatures both on-screen and in print ensured legal validity. All this was accomplished without needing to rewrite any legacy applications. The results have been impressive—users have less paper, less storage is needed for archives, there has been a 60% reduction in paper and forms costs, and a 30% improvement in the job printing time.
Impact of these trends
The new consolidated printer centers have taken the following actions to successfully make the transition:
1) Increasing flexibility. The variety and sources of print jobs continue to increase as printing converges. In-plants have had to adapt and learn how to best take these new sources of jobs into the print center, while remaining efficient and providing excellent customer service.
2) Operating in a mixed hardware and software environment. Most important are vendor-neutral solutions or those that support a wide range of hardware and software workflows to reduce operating complexities and deliver continued efficiencies.
3) Handle more volume without increasing staff. Our customers have often seen their in-plant volume increase as a result of these trends, using workflow software to effectively handle more jobs without additional staff.
In our next article we’ll review the third trend, how print centers are making it easier for customers to work with them than as they face more competition from commercial printers and major office supply super stores. Our final article will discuss continually improving workflow to meet ever-increasing customer demands for shorter print runs and faster turn-around.
What’s your take? Let us know in our 90 second survey
Take this quick survey and tell us how these trends are impacting your business, or provide your feedback. We will enter everyone who takes the survey into a random drawing for a $50US American Express gift card, and will publish the results.
To learn more about this trend, listen to the webinar “Super-Efficient In-Plants: Stimulate Your Print Center! – with American Fidelity Insurance.” If you would like the entire article series, please visit our sign-up page.
American Fidelity saved over $7 million dollars converging its printing, now manages the fleet, and is an outsourcer for other businesses who send them their print work.
Posted on Mon, Nov 01, 2010
By Tim Kelly, SVP, and Elisha Kasinskas, Sr. Marketing Manager, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
This four-article series looks at major trends that the corporate or in-plant print center needs to successfully address to succeed in 2011 and beyond. In this series, we will highlight key factors driving these trends and how some in-plants have successfully implemented solutions to address the challenges.
The trends include: the necessity of marketing the print center, print center convergence to form one corporate print center, making it easier to work with the print center than local suppliers like office supply super stores, and continually improving workflow to meet ever-increasing customer demands for shorter print runs and faster turn-around.
This article focuses on the new necessity of marketing the in-plant to drive business, increase efficiencies for the organization, and help stop leakage to outside providers.
Marketing the in-plant print center – a new necessity
In this age of outsourcing and expense reductions, marketing the cost-effective, efficient in-plant/CRD is a business necessity, it’s no longer enough to just react to changes in the industry, environment, or organization.
Coupled with increasing competition and a battery of choices, internal customers can be just a mouse click away from taking their print business outside. However, in-plants have an advantage over outside providers, and strategically employing these advantages with good old-fashioned marketing and selling principles can be the difference between surviving and thriving.
An internal print center knows an organization: its business rules, objectives, current initiatives, systems to integrate with, and the departments that drive volume. The internal print center also often knows who outside vendors are in the value chain or who compete for work. This information can be difficult or time-consuming for an outside vendor to uncover, making it a natural barrier to entry. But merely possessing this information is not the key. Acting on the intelligence, proactively seeking out additional business and efficiencies by leveraging this knowledge and applying it to the current critical business issues are the keys to successful internal print center marketing. Assuming you will get the business by virtue of proximity is an assumption of the past.
As a corporate print center manager, marketing may not be your area of expertise. Here are some simple actions that you can take to get started marketing your print center:
- External market assessment—What trends are you seeing in your outside competitors? What technologies are being used and how might those technologies be adopted inside your organization? What services are being offered? How does their pricing compare to yours? What compels departments to use outside sources? Which of these services, technologies, and intangibles do you feel that you can do better?
- Internal Assessment—What are your strengths and weaknesses? How can you leverage your strengths and minimize your weaknesses? As an internal organization, what integration or workflow efficiencies can you deliver that an external organization cannot? What jobs MUST stay in house (confidentiality, competitive advantage)? Are their internal advocates, reference customers, and influencers who can help you promote your center and your services?
- Understand your customers—Survey your customers to understand who they are, what their needs are (type of jobs, turn around, efficiency, costs/pricing, job frequency and volume), and what is important to them. Why do customers use or not use your services? What, exactly do they see as their current alternatives—what is being outsourced, and why? What percentage of the company’s total print is being outsourced? Is this the most economical alternative for the organization? What can you do to get ALL of their business (if that is your goal)? Call on your top customers for each service as any sales organization would.
Our most successful customers conducts quarterly or annual meetings with users, understanding their needs and issues, and offering training for new users or to roll out new software features. This undertaking builds key relationships and fosters open lines of cross-department communication.
- Customer segmentation—After surveying your customers, you can segment them, creating segment-specific marketing and sales activities. Determine if you want to and should be everything to all users, or if you want to be a niche player and outsource the work that does not make sense for your organization.
- Add value and offerings—By understanding outside offerings, your internal users, and what is important to them, you are in a position to capitalize on the areas of best opportunity to add value. Value can be created for existing services in the form of turn-around, delivery, and process for new job creation; and by offering new services.
Users may also place value on your print center if you partner with them to create efficiencies, both in workflow and in integration with other internal and external processes and systems. Another of our customers worked with us to help Marketing and Purchasing integrate their current software so orders can be placed through the purchasing system directly to the print center. This is saving the company considerable dollars and time and has reduced turn-around due to workflow efficiencies.
Value can also come in the form of training and other activities your print center provides to help users fully leverage the investment the company has made in print center technology and provide a more robust user experience.
Villanova University near Philadelphia, PA markets itself to students and faculty in a number of ways
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Turn budget-consciousness into an advantage—Though it is not marketing per se, “carrying the corporate flag” by supporting company-wide initiatives is a positive way to demonstrate the print center’s ability to contribute to the organization. Just as the print center may be worried about controlling costs, or working with fewer resources, there is a very high probability that those concerns are shared across the enterprise. Marketers for example, would appreciate partnering with an internal resource that meets their needs at a cost lower than going outside, or that can help creatively meet their challenges.
By taking these steps, you should be well on your way to successfully addressing the first trend. Marketing will help your print center sustain and increase business, generate positive internal publicity, and create awareness of the services that you offer and how you can contribute to the organization’s overall success.
Our next article in this four article series will discuss trends that have lead to the convergence of the in-plant print center and some customer examples. No longer just a copy center or print shop, these organizations have matured and are growing, or at least changing, due to convergence of printing inside enterprises, changing printing technology to digital and digital workflows, and leveraging transactional data center printing.
Simon Fraser University in British Columbia has a robust website for its Document Solutions department, and even has customer testimonials on the site.
To learn more about how to address this trend, listen to the free webinar “marketing your print center,” on the RSA website. If you would like the entire article series sent to you, please visit our sign-up page.
Posted on Mon, Oct 25, 2010
Four trends for In-plant print center success in 2011 and beyond
By Tim Kelly, SVP, and Elisha Kasinskas, Sr. Marketing Manager, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
This is the first in a series of four articles that look at major trends that the corporate print center needs to successfully address to succeed in 2011 and beyond.
Corporate Print Center Defined
We define the new “corporate print center” as the in-house print center that now may include the in-plant, the CRD, and the data center. Specifics vary, but the print center exists in all vertical markets, including education, healthcare, insurance, finance, government and other business operations. Our primary distinction is the exclusion of outside, commercial printers.
Although corporate print centers and commercial printers are becoming more and more similar, they still have some very important business distinctions.
Marketing, Convergence, Ease of Ordering & Workflow
Four strong in-plant print center trends that we have experienced and expect to continue are:
- Marketing of the in-plant print center is now a necessity.
- Print centers are converging; data centers, CRDs, and in-plant print centers are combining into one corporate print center.
- Enterprise Print centers have to make ordering and delivery easy for their customers—easier than the local office supply superstore.
- Continual workflow improvements by in-plants are needed to meet customer demands for shorter print runs and faster turnaround times.
In this series, which begins next week, we will review key factors driving these four major trends and how some in-plants have successfully implemented solutions to address the challenges.
* We invite you view to view this recording to see how Iowa Health System has streamlined their workflow.