It’s not surprising that the changing purchasing habits and heightened expectations of modern customers have also impacted the worldwide print industry. Print companies of all types are finding they need to operate in a more cohesive and integrated manner to meet customer demands.
Customers engage with print companies at various stages – sales, customer service, production, and delivery – and simply investing in an integrated software system is not enough. The critical question is whether the print company is willing to adopt a unified approach to utilizing the software solution.
Strive Toward a Cooperative Goal
The primary objective of a print company’s project should be to encourage the entire organization to work as a unified entity towards customer satisfaction. Let technical and functional considerations take a supportive role in creating a cohesive customer experience. The success of a print company’s project will depend on your team’s perseverance, tenacity, and – most of all – the courage to change their organizational culture and processes to match the demands of modern customers when necessary.
Say So Long to Silos
Many printers still rely on an IT infrastructure that’s built on information silos. Different departments, such as sales, customer service, and production, all have their software systems to manage and maintain critical business data.
But this approach leads to several negative outcomes, including the duplication of data, inconsistencies in information, and delayed decision-making based on incomplete, outdated, or misleading management information. Such an IT architecture can negatively impact the competitive position of your print business, erode customer and employee loyalty, and put pressure on your financial results.
Good Communication is Key
To overcome these challenges, you should engage in open discussions with your management team to identify information silos and determine which ones are the most frustrating internally – and which ones hinder customers the most. Assess the annual loss of revenue, margin, and customer loyalty to which these silos may be contributing. It’s also quite common that your legacy systems and processes may be deeply entrenched, making it difficult to change organizational culture and workflow.
If your company can transition towards a more integrated and cohesive approach to data management, and ensure that all departments have access to the same information, via the same print MIS/ERP system, you can increase operational efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve greater financial success.
More Than Just a Purchase. An Investment.
The real work starts with defining an appealing and attractive project goal that encompasses the needs of the entire organization. This goal must be communicated to all departments and individual employees with the aim of encouraging enthusiasm and support for the project. Senior management should take responsibility for defining an attractive project goal and getting all employees enthusiastic about working towards that goal. Each department must be willing to trade in their individual sub-objectives for the greater goal of creating a unified and cohesive customer experience – which will benefit everyone in the long run.
If your team is willing to jump these organizational hurdles before the implementation starts, significant gains can be made – gains that cannot be achieved by simply transferring the current “IT patchwork quilt” into a new MIS/ERP software solution.
Take Courage!
Print companies must be willing to challenge departmental interests, sub-optimization, and uncooperative attitudes of managers and employees. Have the courage to make these necessary adjustments and you’ll achieve long-term success in your project implementation!
Any size, any type of graphics business
PrintVis is a complete solution for any size company in any segment of the graphic arts community: Commercial offset or digital print, label, flexo, packaging, print finishing, bindery and more. You don’t need to purchase a basket of additional modules for PrintVis to address your specific business, like most other print MIS software requires.
For 25 years, PrintVis has remained a standard system, to ensure that our customers can evolve with the solution, as the graphics industry evolves. And because our software is built directly in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, when you get PrintVis, you are also getting Business Central – it’s a seamlessly combined solution.
You’ll be giving your company the bottomless toolkit onto which you can add any specialization you may discover a need for – today or 10 years from now.
PrintVis offers a complete, versatile business solution from Microsoft to the printing industry – with a flexible subscription model hosted entirely in the secure Microsoft Azure cloud.
Lastly, join our weekly overview demo and get a nice tour of the system!