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Denna sida finns ej tillgänlig på 'Svenska'. Därför visas den engelska versionen.:
 There is still no change at the business atmosphere of economy in Germany. Therefore it is not foreseeable
when the printing industry can expect an improvement of the situation. But who gives up
now, has already lost. Experts recommend worldwide to change the difficulties, the
branch is confronted with, into chances – this did Köller + Nowak. |
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An advice, which can be heard everywhere at the moment is: do not sell capacities, but
products and solutions and offer the customers an added value. The technologies of
Producing are no possibilities for printing companies to differentiate anymore.
Quality and delivery on time are also not enough these days in many cases.
Either it is bought under the price or the printing company offer the customer a clear
added value, like e.g. services of data-basis or mailings to the print of variable
dates or to a special processing. |
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Ingo Nowak, directing manager of the printing company Köller+Nowak: More service through E-Business. |
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Köller + Nowak, the printing company from Düsseldorf, since 1977 on the market, mean
with “added value” sounds convincing. “We are listening exactly, what our customers
wish and we create trust” says Ingo Nowak, managing director, “therefore our customers
stand by us in hard times, too, and do not just change the supplier.”
Completely new at Köller + Nowak is a service, which gives the customer concrete
advantages and which simplifies additionally his decision to stay regular customer:
E-Business. By accessing an area individually installed for him on the website of
Köller + Nowak, the customer can see, how many copies of a special leaflet are still
in the stock of the printing company as unfinished or finished products, how an offer
for a catalogue, which was submitted two weeks ago looks like, or when the delivery of
a part quantity to an work abroad was done. And more than this: He can order because of
the offer or e.g. order quickly printing wares. And this he can do 24 hours a day!
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For Ingo Nowak the way to E-Business began with searching a new MIS System. Over the search machine Google
he found HIFLEX Print – and he discovered with astonishment, that already in autumn
2001 the E-Business-function was contained in the whole concept. Step by step he also
knew the other advantages of HIFLEX Print, so it was no question any more to buy this
MIS System and to integrate it into the company. The idea in origin to buy the new
version of the MIS System used up to this point was settled quickly, because this one
was in comparison to HIFLEX Print not open enough.
“I wanted an open system which is future-oriented” he says looking back, “Openness was
an important criteria for me, and a MIS System just designed for Microsoft is the
opposite of this. HIFLEX was the only system which integrated the absolute open networked production to the internet – without supplementary parcels or options.”
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A further advantage Nowak knew quickly and liked: “The support is quick, friendly and very personal”, he
says. “ You directly get to experts. There is no hotline like in Call-Centers and no
long wait, so at first you have to wait 15 minutes on the phone. Either someone has
time for you, or you will be called back.” Which is very convenient for him is the
nearness of the support to the development. If there is the case, that the support
cannot solve a request by his own he even can expect a small changing in the system
or a small update of the system within a week. So he has not to wait until the next
version comes out.
Especially in the time before E-Business was established – a time of “making and
trying”- Ingo Nowak took advantage of this support. “ Sometimes I phoned with HIFLEX in
Aachen daily” he admits. “Basically there is always something to clear up, because the
software makes progress. I always have a list with options, on which I also want to
make adaptings. So for me the support of HIFLEX is no repair of errors but a
development.”
Especially advantageous is – due to Nowak, that the support (12 hours every day, also
on public holidays) and the updates of the MIS System are included in the annual
charges of HIFLEX Print. Further the MIS System can be installed in as many places as
you like.
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Four or five employees at Köller + Nowak work with HIFLEX Print, two of them always. To the question if there exists an area HIFLEX revolutionized completely, Ingo Nowak answers spontaneously with the Document-File. Here, each document is saved in the original-view of the Word-Documents. The system names and managed these documents automatically. That means, to a special order the user calls, he can list several documents. Within seconds the whole system is combed.
“Within 30 seconds I concretely found the delivery note of this order” Nowak tells. “ I
don’t want to think about, how we filed copies before “ he continues, “when in those
days a customer called and wanted to have a copy of a delivery note, to get to know how
many copies were delivered to which address, at first we had to search the files for
hours.”
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As in nearly every modern company, Köller + Nowak also had the wish to be presented in the internet. The
first homepage was opened in 1998 – firstly just as a classic company-presentation.
“When the Bundesverband Druck Cross Media promoted, we also were busy with it and we
offered web-contents with the cooperation of an agency”, tells Nowak, “but we noticed
on a long-term basis, that this is not our business.” |
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Ingo Nowak it is able to log into the company's internet by his note-book and Wireless-LAN. |
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After the digital networked production of the company and the installation of the HIFLEX-Print-Software,
the things changed then. It was obvious to present the dates of the networked
production in the internet - at least those, which could be useful for the customer.
The aim is, to offer the customer more transparence und a better flexibility to deal.
Not to forget is the decrease of the process-costs in the purchasing, which play a very
important role at large customers with a large printing-volume.
An access to parts of the MIS System is useful right then, when a customer gives the
order to produce large quantities of a brochure to get a cheaper purchasing price, but
who does not stock in the own company, and leaves the stocking and logistics to Köller
+ Nowak. In the past, if the customer e.g. plans a special offer and he needs as
special quantity of brochures, he had to call and let him give the stocks in hand.
Today he logs in with a pin on the internet-site of Köller + Nowak and he is able to
see the stocks there. Because of the function “Mail-Roboter”, which is also contained
in the MIS System, Nowak is informed automatically by e-mail – a soon as special stocks
are remained. A corresponding mail with the content: “Warning – stock remained. Please
give a new order to Köller + Nowak!” is sent to the customer, too.
If the customer now wants to know, how much the price is for the post-presses, he
either can orientate by an offer existing in the internet already, or he can ask for a
new offer by Köller + Nowak which will be put into the internet automatically. The
advantage: if the customer has a meeting in the evening and he needs the access to the
new offer, he can read the dates quickly and reliably online.
Then the customer can place the order at the touch of a button and load the dates to
the order. So the order-dates are directly assigned to the order and are managed by the
system correspondingly. At the same time, Nowak gets an SMS or an e-mail, that tells
him that the order has been placed. The information he also gets when no order is
placed, because the “Mail-Roboter” reminds him after a few days to contact the customer
once again.
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Köller + Nowak has a lot of customers who are very interested in using the advantages of E-Business.
They get the possibility to log in with a password to their own archives of offers and
orders – to the personalized real-dates of HIFLEX Print. The E-Business archives are
structured clearly arranged and gives an answer to the question, which orders and
offers were existing or which are running at the moment at Köller + Nowak. Apart from
that requests in details can be answered directly interactively. |
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In the Log-In-area of the e-business-modul customers can e.g. open their order-archives to look into documents of finished orders.
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In addition to this standards of E-Business-solution Köller + Nowak installs also special solutions for
large customers. “Everything, you know from the classic shop-systems in the internet,
is possible”, says Ingo Nowak. So he implements e.g. requested company-specified
purchasing modalities with minimum-or maximum limits as well as accounting-regulations.
In a following stadium he wants to give his customers the possibility to see the
RIP-Dates of their orders and to follow the status of the running order. In future it
is also planned to realize a customer’s access to an own picture-data-basis. Advantages
for the printing company, too.
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As soon as the customer orders online, the MIS System puts an order and informs Ingo Nowak. Now he can print
the corresponding job docket, on which the estimate data is attached, too. If it is
about the call of finished products, he is even informed by the e-mail, that the
delivery note is provided. “I just need to click the link and I get the delivery-note
on my screen – including the protocols of stock-decrease and of the customer’s
activities. This is all totally automated.”
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Another advantage is the direct personalizing of printings over E-Business. Example: business cards.
Because of the designing-basis which is layed down before, the production can be made
very reasonable and without big effort. This must not be mixed up with a business
card-system of private people. In this case it is handled with concerns needing
printings (also the classic business card) in the same CI in all branches. The customer
just registers his dates personalized into a form. Then the contents personalized are
generated automatically to a standard business card over PDF-functions (in concern-CI).
Now the customer can examine the business card on the screen, release it and give the
order. This PDF goes directly to RIP and is now ready for being printed. |
The Deutscher Drucker is the specialized magazine for prepress, cross-media-publishing, press, postpress. Deutscher Drucker is
the market leading specialized magazine of the graphic industry and offers because of a
professional and international editorial- and author-team, highest actuality and
specialized competence. In addition to that the Deutscher Drucker, with its 42 issues
yearly, contains the information to prepress, press, graphic materials and postpress as well
as to technologie of media. With its job market, second-hand-market, and its market supply,
which are the greatest in its branch, Deutscher Drucker offers his deciders a framework that
shows which investment is useful and why and when it is useful. This article is adopted
in the original version.
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