Putting Your In-Plant Online
(Part 1 of 2)
By Greg Cholmondeley
In-Plant Segment Marketing Manager,
Ricoh Americas Corporation
It doesn’t matter whether you call it Web-to-Print, Digital Submission, Online Ordering or Multi-channel Web Services – establishing an online presence and getting work via the web has become essential to your printing business. In-Plant Graphics Magazine reported in its 2008 In-Plant Market Data Report that 39% of their survey respondents are using web-to-print systems today and 90% of these systems were put into place in just the past 3 years! NAPL’s 2008 State of the Industry Critical Issues Survey of commercial “Print for Profit” accounts also highlighted the interest in web-to-print by ranking Web-to-Print as their number 4 investment priority for the next 3 years.
Just installing a web-to-print system is not sufficient. It will do you no good if it isn’t used by your customers and will be a constant source of frustration if it doesn’t meet your internal production needs. Furthermore, while this won’t be the most expensive purchase decision you make – it can certainly be one of the most visible. Your web-to-print package will be the first, and often primary, interaction your clients have with your shop and will strongly influence their perception of your operation. If it is awkward, outdated, unreliable or unprofessional – then they will probably view your entire operation in that light. Likewise, a fast, efficient, friendly and professional experience will engender confidence that the rest of your operation operates in the same manner. This is your online face to your customer – make sure it is a good one!
So Many Choices…
So, with a myriad of choices out there how do you select the right one? Before you start to “google” web-to-print, or wander a trade show floor, or ask your friends for advice – or even talk to Ricoh – you should do a little homework that only you can answer.
Start by answering 2 general categories of questions:
- What are your in-plant’s web-to-print needs?
- What are your customers’ web-to-print needs?
Then, you can start your product research, again looking at 2 general areas:
- The vendor: company strength and ability to support service, installation and customization
- The product: capabilities, extensibility, customization, compatibility, certification
In this 2-part series we’ll explain and explore these questions with you much like your Ricoh Production Print Specialist would. The first article will cover considerations about your customers’ needs. The second will discuss ways to clarify your internal needs, questions for your vendor, and descriptions of some typical in-plant situations that might help you narrow your search.
Put Your Customers First
As you begin contemplating implementing a web-to-print solution, begin by understanding the needs of your clients. Understanding why they need online submission, what they want to send, and their technical abilities will help ensure your implementation will be used. It will also help you determine what to look for in terms of access, security and billing when you start comparing products.
Who Are Your Clients?
Do you have a small number of regular users who submit the majority of your work or do you have a large number of “surf-in” customers? It is fairly easy to create and maintain accounts for a small number of regular users and you can also afford to spend resources training them for more sophisticated operations. It is much more difficult to maintain special accounts for “surf-in” clients and, since they may be single-time users ordering business cards or special event materials, there can be no required training.
Where are these clients located? Are they behind your firewall (as in a corporation or school) or do they come from outside (as in a graphic arts firm or in in-plant insourcing)? If you’re an in-plant with all your clients behind your firewall, you might not require any secure logins or you could rely upon existing authentication (e.g. LDAP). If you’re going to be on the web where anyone in the world can see you, however, your web-to-print solution probably needs more stand-alone security features built into it.
Why Do Clients Need Web-to-Print From You?
Answering this, often overlooked, question up front provides you with 2 important benefits. It will help you select the right implementation and it will help you ensure utilization. There are numerous reasons why people need web-to-print – but they aren’t always the same for every organization.
Here are some common ideas:
- Reduce turnaround time (For customers, the clock starts ticking when they decide they need a production job – not when they deliver the master to the print shop.)
- Make it easier to submit work
- Make it easier and faster to go through approval cycles
- Get better quality with fewer errors
- Avoid the expense and hassle of creating PDF files
- Save time (and money) from using hallway printers for large jobs
- Easily order materials (business cards, manuals, forms, brochures, promotional materials, supplies, etc.)
Generate personalized materials (VDP direct mailings, newsletters, etc.)
- Avoid travel
Be sure that the reasons you have are really from your clients – and not just the ones that sound good to you. Guessing wrong means you will be fighting an uphill battle to get them to use it.
What Kinds of Jobs Will They Send?
There are web-to-print solutions available that can handle any type of work but to "do it all" will add expense and complexity to your implementation. If you only need to handle basic production work then buying an implementation that supports data center integration and sophisticated approvals workflows is not only overly expensive but it might be so complex to use that your clients won’t bother to use it. On the other hand, if your clients need those types of capabilities and you implement a basic system – it will be so painful that, again, it will not be used.
Some ideas for the types of jobs you might receive via web-to-print include:
- Basic production jobs
- Complex multi-part production jobs (e.g. multi-document, rework, approvals)
- Print jobs from departmental printers
- Simple VDP applications (e.g. business cards, addressing.)
- Complex VDP applications
- Simple reprint orders (forms, collaterals, manuals, etc.)
- Print and supplies ordering (e.g. CDs, T-shirts, promotional materials etc.)
- Transactional/ Data Center/ Transpromo work
Which do you need to support right now? Which will you need to support over the next 3 years?
How Much Will They Use It?
Assuming that you answered the previous questions accurately, how much can you realistically expect your clients to use this system? Anticipating job, document and page volumes through web-to-print will not only help you select an appropriately scaled implementation – it will help set your expectations for judging its effectiveness. If you only expect a handful of jobs per day then, unless there are critical business reasons for web-to-print, you might want to consider if it is worth the investment. If you anticipate hundreds or thousands of jobs per day, either now or in the next 3 years, then you should get a very robust implementation. Of course, there are many answers in between these extremes and they will affect your implementation choices.
Usage is hard to predict, but take some time to ask yourself:
- How many clients should I expect to have in the first 6 months? In 3 years?
- How many digitally submitted jobs per month should I expect in the first 6 months? In 3 years?
- How many documents and pages (which translates to revenue) does this represent?
What’s Next?
Once you’ve done this you’ll have good understanding of why your clients need web-to-print from you along with some realistic expectations of how, and how much, they will use it. In my next article I’ll go through some questions you should ask yourself about:
- Your shop’s internal needs
- Your infrastructure requirements and limitations
- Marketing and training needs
- Extension needs beyond web-to-print - both now and in the future
- Examples of typical print operations grouped by similar needs
Of course, if you can’t wait until the next issue – meet with your Ricoh Production Print Specialist who can help you explore your needs and identify appropriate web-to-print implementations for your shop.
Greg Cholmondeley
Segment Marketing Manager
Ricoh Americas Corp.
An expert in production printing environments and solutions, Greg Cholmondeley is responsible for in-plant marketing for Ricoh Americas’ Production Printing Business Group. He brings 25 years of engineering, systems architecture, solutions development and industry marketing experience to this assignment. Greg can be reached at Greg.Cholmondeley@Ricoh-USA.com or at 561.516.0238.
|
