 | | | | |
|
| |
 |
The production technologies of the printing industry do not give printing offices the chance to distinguish themselves
from their competitors. Usually, only off-the-shelf technology that is available to all competitors is used.
Printing offices are (and remain at first) technically interchangeable for the customer. That is why printing
offices must convince their customers every day that they are the right partner.
The surplus capacities that have been created in the printing industry over the past few years have led to a
dramatic drop in prices. What’s more, customer looking to buy print products on the market today want increasingly
shorter print runs and delivery deadlines. With the current market situation, this development cannot be compensated
with higher prices.
Due to the shorter runs, printing offices must process considerably more jobs than before to be able to operate
at full capacity. But each additional job means more time and money spent on job processing. Also, the demand for shorter
delivery times calls for higher speed and reliability in job processing.
|
|
There are basically two objectives in using eBusiness: (1.) Acquiring and retaining customers by offering them
surplus value and (2.) cut costs in job processing in order to remain competitive.
Increasing the surplus value for the customer is not difficult if you can invest more time and effort in customer service
and thereby in job processing. On the other hand, costs in job processing can be cut by reducing the quality of customer
service. Neither approach is feasible for today’s printing offices.
Cutting costs while improving service at the same time seems to be utterly impossible. eBusiness combines these
opposites and offers a solution that is in the best interest of the printing office and the customer.
|
eBusiness allows you to ease the strain on your customers’ commercial administration, offer them real
surplus value and bind them to your business more strongly than ever. For your customers, eBusiness means:
- Reduced costs in purchasing:
- for requests for quotes / placing of orders
- for the technical realization
- for the "digital aspect" (data communications)
- for shipping / logistics
- for storage and requisition of finished goods
- Better supply chains (efficient cooperation due to customized workflow)
- Better project management
- Availability around the clock and easy handling
- Faster exchange of information (faster reaction)
- Decrease in error frequency
- More transparency
- Development of many new possibilities of application
To show you that these effects are not merely theoretical, let us look at BMW as an example. With the help
of eBusiness, the time needed to place an order could be decreased from 65 minutes to 17 minutes. As a result,
BMW could reduce its staff in the purchasing department by one-third.
eBusiness offers your customers many advantages, some of which have direct and others indirect financial consequences.
By providing your customers with unique services, you will become and remain the right partner. And with a
printing office offering such benefits, it seems reasonable to expect that customers will occasionally place an order
that would otherwise be awarded to the competition.
|
eBusiness not only helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors and create the desired image of a modern
full-service media company. It will streamline your commercial administration, enabling you to concentrate
on acquiring new customers.
The institute for efficient management of graphic arts enterprises (Institut für rationale Unternehmensführung in der
Druckindustrie e.V., IRD) has examined the effect of eBusiness on the activities of sales and customer service departments
in graphic arts businesses.
It found that the average cost of processing a simple job (2.8 quotes per job) in the industry is EUR 280.
According to the IRD, eBusiness reduces this cost to EUR 60 (to 21.4%).
In the sales department, eBusiness can help you save money in customer support by telephone (15% of the working time on average)
and support during order processing (9.7% of the working time on average). The IRD assumes that sales departments can save
a little more than 5 hours per week, thereby increasing the time that sales representatives spend in the field
service from currently 62% to 73% (on average).
For the customer service department, the IRD has identified the following activities as savings possibilities:
Briefing/transfer from the sales representative to the customer service representative (4.2%), cost estimation and
quoting (23.5%), estimation of job order costs and job confirmation (12.3%), and support during order processing (12.2%)
(all values on average). All in all, eBusiness allows you to save 11 hours per week on these activities!
|
|
|
|
|
Click on the images to see a larger view. |
|
|
|
With a simple mouse click in the customer database, you can activate the eBusiness function for a customer.
The eBusiness module will act as an interpreter between the Hiflex system and your website: By entering a user
name and password on your website, your customers and/or suppliers obtain access to selected data of the HIFLEX system.
Your customers do not need special hardware or software to use this function. They can, for instance: |
|
 |
- View their finished goods or goods in process and issue call-forward notices,
- Transmit requests for product information (standardized!),
- Write simple quotes (budget calculations),
- Enter information for personalization of business cards or flyers for retail chains (vie PDF files)
and order printed matter directly
- Issue print releases online (via PDF files),
- Access their order book to view current and past orders,
- Check the current, technical information relating to an order,
- Transmit last-minute changes or supplements quickly and efficiently,
- Call up quotes, order confirmations, invoices and delivery notes of their orders,
- Maintain their customer data, such as addresses, contacts, and telephone numbers
Of course, you yourself determine which data (scope and detail) are made available to others via the eBusiness module.
If you would like to see an online demonstration of how HIFLEX eBusiness is used by leading printing offices, use the
guest login of our customer Kraft Druck und Verlag who will be introduced in the next section.
Moreover, we would like to show you two short examples (technology demonstrations) of the following scenarios:
1. Personalization of business cards.
Your customer (or his/her branches) can use the HIFLEX eBusiness Center to personalize business cards and place
the corresponding order online (with automatic entry in your order book). The system generates a PDF file that
serves as release and can be used directly in the PDF workflow of your prepress stage.
2. Flyers for retail chains.
Your customer is a retail chain with several branches at home and abroad. The individual branches have a login
for your Hiflex eBusiness Center. There, they can choose one of several designs for the flyer, select their address
and enter more personalization data. The system again generates a PDF file that serves as release and can be
used directly in the PDF workflow of your prepress stage.
|
|
The HIFLEX eBusiness module can help you save time, cut costs, and ensure a lasting improvement in
customer-supplier communications, because it attracts and binds customers, increases the sales volume, makes use
of savings possibilities (e. g. by allowing customer to enter call orders directly in your system), reduces
production errors through effective communication and fewer misunderstandings, increases efficiency and
flexibility and optimizes customer service. |
|
| |
;)
;)