Way back in 2013, a Danish print broker known as Graphical Production Facilities went live with PrintVis and Microsoft Dynamics NAV (now known as Business Central) on a completely cloud-hosted environment, the Microsoft Azure platform.
Company Director Vilhelm Jensen remarked, “The cloud model makes our IT costs manageable. We must pay a modest price compared to our old accounting system that was also subscription based. But, on the other hand, today we have one system for everything that can easily be extended—for example, with external offices, if we grow. The value of that is definitely worth the small difference in price.”
By deploying in the cloud, Graphical Production Facilities avoided the startup costs for licenses and hardware. Instead they pay a fixed amount per user each quarter. The only costs during installation were related to setting up customers, suppliers, and accounts in the system.
A Print Broker’s Situation
Graphical Production Facilities works out of an office in Denmark that has storage facilities but no graphics production capabilities. It serves a range of companies in need of various products for their operations and marketing—from business cards and product directories to market umbrellas. The business of Graphical Production Facilities requires finding the best solution at the right price in a jungle of suppliers, and this demands that it maintain an overview of the many specialist suppliers and their prices.
The information needed to create this overview existed in two separate systems. Data had to be entered multiple times, which consumed time and resources. “It was not optimal for efficiency in a stressful industry,” explains Jensen. “And our previous systems required me to involve myself in everything that had to do with organization and costing. Therefore, we looked for a new system that was targeted to our industry needs, and at the same time could make our IT costs manageable.”
Print Management Software in the Cloud
The implementation was also special in that the PrintVis team handled it directly, rather than through a certified Partner, which is the norm. Jensen reports that the PrintVis people were on premises for two days. He explains, “Setup took place mostly online, and in small steps, so it did not disrupt our work. The PrintVis people were good at planning connectivity in relation to our needs, so we could keep the shop running. This flexibility was valuable for us.”
Because Graphical Production Facilities was the first company in the world to implement PrintVis Cloud, setup took a total of eight days, with a little extra adjustment time on the technical side. The company didn’t have to buy any new computers because PrintVis runs on the company’s existing Macs through Windows emulation software.
A 40 Percent Improvement in Efficiency from a Single Print MIS Solution
Graphical Production Facilities reported several tangible benefits from their implementation of Microsoft Dynamics and PrintVis Cloud, including greater efficiency, manageable IT costs, improved job costing, easier financial management, and increased flexibility.
“The solution has increased our efficiency by 40 percent,” asserts Jensen. “The gain comes primarily from automating large parts of our order administration. This means that we only need to enter data on suppliers and customers once.” He adds, “This gives us several advantages: It facilitates costing and strengthens our overview because we can go back and look at previous prices from the same supplier whenever we want. Plus, the system’s workflow ensures that data are automatically reused in our quotations, order confirmations, delivery notices, and invoices so that the content is always correct and uniform. In short, the solution optimizes the work processes that typically steal time in a smaller print broker company like ours.”
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A Free Trial of the Best Print MIS Solution
Today, cloud-hosted subscription-based implementations are fast becoming the norm, and PrintVis has evolved tremendously with the times. The powerful system is available as an app (with a free trial!) which means easy upgrades, far less risk and a much lower entry level cost – not to mention all of the incredible, print-specific functionality. The flexibility that comes with being able to add and remove users as needed is also a huge plus in times of economic uncertainty. Of course by now our worldwide network of certified Partners is quite accustomed to cloud deployments. We’ve even partnered with Kodak with their brand new launch of PRINERGY On Demand Solutions.
The ever-changing world of print is alive and well, and companies of all sizes around the world are discovering that the combined solution of PrintVis and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the best print MIS/ERP system to meet their needs, now and far into the future.