by Chuck Gehman
In the first article in this series, (High Volume Printing, June 2000), subtitled “The dotcoms… who are they and what do they do,” we talked about the many “dotcom” companies that have emerged to serve the e-commerce needs of the printing industry. We provided some information about their business models and market focus.
Our second installment in the August 2000 edition of High Volume Printing, subtitled “Supply chain benefits or loss of control?” discussed in some detail the debate that rages among printers about whether or not these companies provide value to their businesses, and to what extent these companies are working to provide features and benefits that address the industry’s needs.
In this final installment, we’ll talk to some printers who are using these systems and bring to light some of the successes they have had, some concerns that they see and some of the hope they have placed in these systems.
For this article, we talked to users of the “big four” systems: Collabria, Impresse, Noosh and printCafe as well as a newcomer called Printable.com that has a different approach to the marketplace. Since the first article, a large number of new “dotcom” vendors have launched their businesses, and it wouldn’t be fair to make it seem like the five companies whose users we talked to are the only viable companies in this market space. We were readily able to find users of these systems to talk to, however, and these users can help us to understand many of the issues around selecting and using a system from any of the dotcom companies.
Who are these companies?
The companies we talked to seem to represent a pretty good cross-section of the marketplace for these services in general. They range from a single site, very specialized printer in St. Louis called NJC Printing, with 10 employees and $1.5 million in sales, to American Mailwell, a company that calls itself “the largest commercial printer in North America” with $2.5 billion in sales, about 15,000 employees and 140 facilities.
It seems that size doesn’t matter in this equation. All of the companies we spoke to found that these systems are both of great benefit to their own organizations and an important tool to help them address the demands their customers are placing on them.
Each of the companies we spoke with mentioned that they are pretty early in the deployment of their particular system, although some have been using it for over a year. They are most certainly early adopters, with many of them participating in the vendor’s pre-release or beta programs.
All of the companies we spoke with stated that they had recently received RFPs (Request for Proposal) from customers that required some sort of e-commerce or on-line ordering component as a requirement to submit a bid. This is an interesting point, because it means that our fear of being “left behind”, or losing customers because we haven’t chosen a system may be justified.
In each case, we spoke with a key decision maker for each of the companies involved. NJC Printing is a small commercial printer, described by it’s President, Mike Corson , as “having roots in the quick printer market.” NJC uses the Printable system.
Sun Printing House is a Philadelphia based printer founded in 1880. Cindy Wollman is the President of Sun Printing House, which has been family owned and operated for four generations. They specialize in printing highly regulated, specialized materials for Pharmaceutical companies. Cindy refers to her company as a “Critical Information Provider.” Sun uses the printCafe system.
Rob Wainer is the President of Sunset Stationers in Wharton, New Jersey. Sunset specializes in corporate identity materials (including report covers, pocket folders, business cards, response cards and four color sell sheets) and is a Collabria user.
Jay Carlson is president of Wallace Carlson, a Minnetonka, Minnesota-based commercial sheet fed operation, printing four, five and six color products. They are Impresse users.
ColorGraphics, Inc. has four plants in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County, California and in Seattle, Washington. They specialize in annual reports, brochures and other high-end products, with both sheetfed and web capabilities. Noosh is their primary system, but they also use Impresse because of customer requirements. We spoke with Rob Fucillo, Sales Representative.
Last but certainly not least, American Mailwell describes themselves as a $2.5 billion New York Stock Exchange listed company (MWL), the largest commercial printer in North America. They print a wide variety of products at their 140 sites. We spoke with David Holt, who is CEO of PrintVentures, Mailwell’s ebusiness operation.
| Company Name
| Contact | No. of Employees | Revenues | Solution Chosen |
| NJC Printing | Mike Corson, President | 10 | $1.5 million | Printable |
| Sun Printing House | Cindy Wollman, President | 33 | $5 million | PrintCafe |
| Sunset Stationers | Rob Wainer, President | 50 | $6 million | Collabria |
| Wallace Carlson Company | Jay Carlson, President | 55 | $8 million | Impresse |
| ColorGraphics, Inc. | James Fucillo, Sales | 500 | $150 million | Noosh |
| American Mailwell | David Holt, CEO of Mailwell’s PrintVentures | 15,000 | $ 2.5 billion | printCafe |
Choosing a System and a Vendor
All of these companies had been investigating this trend for some time. Some of the companies, like ColorGraphics and Mailwell, had been planning to develop their own system internally to address some or all of these needs.
“During the process of building our own internal system to do something similar, Noosh and Impresse launched and we took a look at their systems,” says James Fucillo with ColorGraphics, Inc. “We do quite a bit of work for Bank of America, and they were fully on board with Noosh, so that got us going with them.”
Similarly, Mailwell was in the process of developing a “branded electronic workflow,” according to David Holt. They have chosen to combine printCafe, Sprockets.com (a collaboration service) and their own internally developed ImageLink system to provide a comprehensive suite of customer focused tools. Holt says that after reviewing a large number of providers, printCafe was their choice.
Mailwell had established three criteria as the most important in their selection of the printCafe system. According to Holt, “First, it didn’t add to our cost of doing business with our customers. Second, it had good web front end tools, that made it simple for their customers, and finally, they had integrated these tools with a solid, back end ERP system” (ERP is Enterprise Resource Planning, and is an internal MIS application.) Mailwell is a consolidator, and they already had installed systems from three of the companies that printCafe either purchased or merged with: Hagen, Logic and PSI. “We’d been watching the ebusiness landscape and were well aware of the players; we began to establish relationships at Seybold Boston 2000.”
Industry consultants and trade journals can make all the difference in choosing a solution that is as important as e-commerce is for your business. And don’t forget to carefully look at what your customers are doing and what their needs are.
Sunset Stationers found out about the Collabria solution from Ira Gold, a well known industry consultant. They’ve been using the system for a year and a half now, so they were really an early adopter. Says Rob Wainer, President, “I was looking at two other systems that were also in their infancy. I thought Collabria was more robust, not only allowing my client to see a picture of their product, but [it] provided back-end reporting functions that were what the customers wanted.” One of the solutions that Wainer investigated before choosing Collabria was a software package that had been developed by a fellow printer.
According to Cindy Wollman, Sun’s choice was printCafe, because “e-commerce is customer driven. Our customers wanted ordering solutions. Taking a look at what was in the marketplace, we felt that a custom branded web site met our needs and our customers needs better than any other product.” As a user of PSI, which is another printCafe company, Wollman liked the integration of the customer web experience with her internal MIS functions. Like the others, Wollman looked at at least two other major products before making the decision to go with her choice of vendor.
Jay Carlson’s decision for Wallace Carlson was really based on both confidence in the vendor, and technical or “look and feel” considerations. “The number one reason [for choosing Impresse] was their attitude toward making it a win-win for the vendor and the customer. And their willingness to listen and respond to our needs. Also, they were price competitive and I thought it was a better program.”
Similarly, NJC’s Mike Corson says Printable really listened to their needs, and of the vendors he spoke with (which included Collabria and MediaFlex) was the most willing to change the system to fit his company’s specialized requirements. Corson had begun investigating his company’s Internet options and strategy over a year ago, with the goal to distinguish themselves from the competition.
Technical Details
All of the companies we spoke with had either just completed an upgrade of their Internet connection, and/or their workstations for other purposes. So they didn’t need to add any additional network equipment or buy new PCs or Macintosh computers to work with the new system.
NJC’s Corson said that while he didn’t need to upgrade workstations or his network to support the Printable system, the types of jobs he is receiving from customers mandated the upgrades. “A couple of years ago when I talked to clients about Print-on-Demand applications and electronic file delivery, what we saw was startled looks and [customers that were] not quite sure what we were talking about. Now those same customers are calling and asking if we can do those things.”
Some mentioned that as they extend the system further into their operation, they may need to add PCs. For example, press personnel and post-press staffers rarely have access to PCs in their work areas, and that may be necessary as these systems extend throughout the organization.
All of the companies we spoke with had detailed conversations with their vendors about security and privacy concerns. In fact, Mailwell’s Holt had printCafe’s security reviewed by an outside technology auditing firm, both from an architecture and technology standpoint, and Holt says “We are satisfied.”
Sunset’s Wainer is confident that Collabria is keeping his information secure, but pragmatically states, “Even if my competitor would know the name of the people I’m dealing with, the existing print buyers are called upon by competitors every day. My relationship is building the business, and I’m confident in our abilities.”
How Long Did it Take to go Operational?
Both internal issues and vendor software and operation challenges can significantly impact how long it takes to go operational with these applications.
According to James Fucillo, ColorGraphics experience implementing the Noosh system took six or seven months, all told. “We were trained and ready to go in a couple of weeks… the learning curve for our salespeople to become accustomed to using it (i.e., not faxing estimates, etc.)” was what really took the time.
Similarly, Mailwell’s planning process and system selection was what took the real time. According to Holt, “We’re past planning and in the deployment stage now. We have a web site going with Time Warner. Our first fourteen sites are coming up in the next six weeks. Live deployments, not beta.”
Sunset’s Wainer says “We were an early site, so it took about two months. We were [Collabria’s] first site on the east coast, and the third site for the product.” As an early adopter, things can take longer than perhaps initially expected.
Sun Printing House is still in their initial deployment of the system. Again, as an early adopter, it can take time for both the vendor and internal systems and personnel to come up to speed. printCafe was announced in February, and Sun signed on in March. Wollman says, “By mid-September, we’ll be operational. We have a system integration team [internally] that includes sales, estimating, customer service and our operations manager. PrintCafe has been onsite and spent considerable time. Marc Olin himself came to make sure things were going well.” Perhaps most importantly, Wollman adds “We’ve done a terrific job educating our workforce about what’s going on. Our company newsletter keeps people involved. Even the pressmen have seen advertisements [for printCafe] in their trade journals and are very excited about the opportunities.”
Another early adopter, Impresse user Wallace Carlson’s Jay Carlson says, “It doesn’t take long to get up and running. When we got hooked up in January, they were still in their infancy in terms of understanding what they had and what to do with it. They listened to our input and we were very impressed about their listening to our likes and dislikes.”
NJC’s Corson is still putting the finishing touches on their system. “We’ve been working with them for about 6 months. We’re developing our version of Printable’s Online Customized Printing System for our customers. It will be entirely branded NJC when we roll it out to our customers.”
Who is Using the System?
Keep in mind that both your own people and your customers are going to have to enjoy using this new system. You will need to put a process in place through which you can achieve “buy-in” from all the constituencies, both within your own organization and with your customers.
All of the interviewees told us that they were using the system with only their largest customers at this time, and that this was a conscious decision.
According to ColorGraphics’s Fucillo, “ We have five or six customers on Noosh, but 100% of their jobs come through it. As far as [total] jobs, it’s upwards of 30% of the jobs coming through. That was one of our goals… it wasn’t going to be viable until we reached 30 or 40% of the jobs coming through [the system.] We have 4 sales reps that use it on a regular basis. We have a total of 15 reps. They are the main contact point for usage, but CSRs are on the system, too and we have production filling in some voids.”
Mailwell’s Holt says initially, estimating, order entry and sales people will be using the web interface, while the backend ERP system will be used primarily by the financial, procurement and production people.
Sunset’s Wainer has 15 customers using the system at this time. “I offered it to my biggest customers first, because this is the type of solution where every one of the customers I show it to says they want it. [Because] there is a real cost to getting this up and running, the volume of the client needs has to be high enough to justify putting the system in. You’re basically setting up a custom web site that is specific to the customer”
Sun’s Wollman concurs, “Initially, we have one [customer] that it is targeted for. We’ve presented it to five others that are very excited about the opportunities. They aren’t quite ready.”
“How many are set-up versus how many are actually using it are two different things,” says Wallace Carlson’s Jay Carlson, “Getting customers to feel comfortable with it is the challenge. A large number of our customers are set up to use it, but it’s a slow adoption.”
Interestingly, the Printable system, as implemented at NJC, will at first be used primarily by pre-press personnel, which was in contrast to the other users we spoke with. Says Corson, “It’s a customer service tool, number one. This helps us move the workflow up the chain a little bit. A lot of our products are custom marketing documents for a corporation’s field sales personnel, primarily in the financial services field.” The system will enable NJC’s personnel to process files from the customer that are substantially more complete than what they receive today, saving time for the client and the prepress staffers. Financial transactions are secondary in Corson’s workflow.
What are the Benefits?
In addition to satisfying customer’s RFP requirements, all of the companies we spoke to mentioned that they felt the e-commerce solution brought some important benefits to their companies.
According to ColorGraphics’ Fucillo, the Noosh system provides a “one-stop” for the information everyone is looking for, whether it is internal personnel or customers. “We try really hard to get all the information into the system so everyone knows what is going on. Another thing is with that information comes accountability as to who is entering that information. Printers are dumped on as the people who have to store the information [about jobs], understand it, and locate it on a moment’s notice. Now customers are accountable for their own information [because they are the ones who are entering it into the system]” says Fucillo.
Jay Carlson, from Wallace Carlson, also stressed the accountability that the Impresse system brings. Not just between the printer and the customer, but also with third parties that may be involved in jobs. “It’s a time saver,” he says. “It lets the salespeople spend more time selling and gives them more opportunities for business. It’s really an asset and an advantage. We’re evangelizing more than our customers coming and asking for it… once they’ve had a chance to experience it and have a good experience, they’ll be pushing it pretty hard.”
Another important aspect brought to light by Dave Holt at Mailwell was printCafe’s user interface. “Since Mailwell was built through acquisition and has such a large number of locations, this technology helps us put one face toward our customers. We will be easier to do business with for our customers”, he says.
Rob Wainer from Sunset stresses the perception of his larger customers in using the Collabria system as extremely important, saying “The perception from the customer or prospect that we’re a leading edge company.” Adding that “the actual implementation allows me to provide better service to [them.]” Both of which are extremely important when you are a small company going after business from large, multinational corporations.
“This system is going to solidify my relationships with my clients to the extent where they are gaining added value and I’m distinguishing myself from my competition. It is important for a company of our size category to respond to competitive pressures,” says NJC’s Corson.
In Summary
Without exception, the executives we spoke with for this article feel that this way of doing business represents the future of our industry.
Not only are there many, many companies creating a wide variety of ebusiness applications for our industry, but there are just as many opinions about what is the correct way to do these things.
It appears that there may not be one application that addresses the needs of every type of company in our industry, and more importantly, we may need to embrace more than one type of technology to address the needs of our own marketplace. Just as we use many different Internet sites to accomplish our needs for things like information and communication, we may need to strategically select a toolset that we can bring to bear to address particular customer needs.
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