Print management how to...
Whether you use a print management company to look after your printed materials or not, you're reading this because you're looking at what the market can deliver or you're interested in the subject relevance to you. As we have been around for over 25 years we feel we know a thing or two about the processes involved, what works and what can cost you money.
There are many interpretations to ‘a print management company' let's break them down:
1. The smallest version is an organisation that will take your print jobs and place them with appropriate printers to produce your work, this route is good for quality control but often the size of the businesses mean that cash flow is limited and they cannot financially manage medium to large businesses requirements. This is also the way advertising agencies place their print work placing a percentage of commission on the job. This doesn't mean you're buying the print work more expensively, as they will have a larger buying power than you and may even be able to offer you discounts on your current spend levels.
2. A printer with print management experience. These businesses have control over the production of their own materials often able to produce large proportions of your materials. This route is best for all brand standard and best for quality control as both client and print management team will work together to maintain a working standard . Some will offer an online ordering solution capable to manage multiple sites and personnel ordering, stock controls giving you the control of all budgets and materials the organisation is producing.
This is the most flexible route for any size business not only can this route offer the most savings but can help support and marketing role outs nationwide, delivering to multiple sites and in varying quantities. These processes are very labour intensive and only this kind of organisation will be able to put this resource cost effectively.
3. The largest of our three is normally a multi-national business often a plc that is capable of looking after worldwide brands i.e. car manufacturers, banks, and international organisations. These businesses operate out of multiple offices and require a larger account management team to look after the intricacies of their total print requirements. More often than not they do not have a production facility but will manage lists of suppliers that will have to tender for the work needed producing, as the scale of the work will often be too large for any one printer to manage.
Our print management service refers to a one off job management from concept; design through to print and distribution and on the larger scale the management of daily orders, using online ordering software, secure data and transactional mail printing, managing stock controls and multiple site distribution. CBF deals with it all daily.
What do you want out of print management?
Be it stock control, online ordering, multiple site/personnel ordering, managing daily orders. Print management processes are there to help you deal with what your good at - your business. By taking away the print procurement process the average saving for any company spending over 50k per year on print is 1 member of personnel i.e. 18k per year on average.
If you business has multiple sites and needs a central ordering point to control spending, manage your brand standards and offer full reporting. Online ordering software is available in various guises giving your staff secure access to see their materials and order only using their budgets.
Multiple site/personnel ordering
The solution you require is dependent on the volume and the nature of your printed materials. With this in mind technology and the internet is there to aid all your daily ordering processes. Online ordering software tools are available all with individual benefits but the general process is the same, each will be secure giving the user access to materials administrators will allow. These items can be made to order or in stock for calling off and distributed wherever the user needs them delivered. These online software packages vary massively in cost and are often subsidised by the print management company.
CBF assess the print spend and the outlay cost to tailor the proposed solution to the individual client. We always highlight the true cost to keep full transparency at all times so our customers know what they are paying for.
There are online solutions available at no cost to the end user, these will provide the basic functions i.e. multiple logins, online ordering, stock controls and quotations etc but generally will not offer online live artwork personalisation and certain reporting functions. Don't forget the added costs to these solutions, artwork charges.
