Product category:
Printing Pre-Press Systems and Materials (Repro, Platemakers, CTP, Workflow, Document Management, Design Software, etc.)
News Release from: Stibo Graphic | Subject: Step, ePrint
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 23 November 2004
Developing Partnerships To Meet
Catalogues' Needs
'One stop shop' is the buzzword in the catalogue publishing industry and with the potential to service pre-press, printing and online needs, suppliers are being forced to ensure long term support.
'One stop shop' is the buzzword in the catalogue publishing industry and with the potential to service pre-press, printing and online needs, suppliers are being forced to ensure that long term support and reliability is provided for customers, according to Uffe Hansen, sales and marketing director at Stibo Graphic Here, he discusses how Stibo Graphic and Stibo Catalog have developed partnerships with their customers, providing services that not only benefit the company but enable catalogue publishers to present attractive services to new and existing customers
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 10 May 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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"When sourcing a supplier, businesses today consider a number of factors such as customer service, experience and quality.
Cataloguers also look for a service provider who values the strict deadlines that need to be met throughout the entire production process - the supplier that meets all of these requirements is not necessarily the one with the lowest price.
Customers seeking a comprehensive service solution realise that this may come at a higher financial cost.
Further reading
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In every industry, businesses are making increasing demands on technology in order to gain a competitive advantage.
UK Travel Brochure Contract Goes To Stibo Graphic
With over 70 brochure titles ranging from 16 pages to 500-plus, the Vacation Rental Group (VRG), knew that when looking for a printing supplier it needed an experienced company.
Software Enables Creative Collaboration
Networked Graphic Production is designed to link the creative desktop into a completely integrated production environment
Therefore, a pre-press, printing and online supplier that can offer a complete service with round the clock support and accessibility can help ease the burdens that catalogue managers face within the production process.
"Thanks to the internet, solutions which use online technology are now available for cataloguers.
The technology integrates each step of the production process, such as uploading content, data management, approvals and printing, into one user friendly system via one service provider.
This web-based system permits businesses to access its catalogue information at any time and any place, while offering returns on investment (ROI) such as reduced production time, lower operational costs over time and round the clock access to customer service.
"In addition to the advantages the internet-based technology provides, businesses are looking for suppliers that offer flexibility and long-term customer relations support.
Cataloguers want to be assured that they can contact their supplier for assistance throughout the day regardless of their location or time zone.
To be a truly comprehensive provider, a supplier cannot walk away once the system is in place - they must maintain a continuing relationship with the customer to ensure the highest level of technical and relationship service.
"The multi-faceted needs of the consumer must be recognised, whereby the technology and customer relations go hand-in-hand.
To meet the requirements of catalogue publishers, there must be a system in place that encapsulates the entire data flow of pre-press and printing in one simple workstream.
Additionally, suppliers for the catalogue industry should offer customers added benefits such as technical training sessions after system installation, continuing relationship management and extended customer service hours that overlap with working hours throughout the world to ensure round the clock access to the supplier.
"Stibo Catalog's content management system, Step, and Stibo Graphic's online workflow system, Stibo ePrint, and their printing setups give customers an integrated workstream that allows them to move between the various stages of production, we believe.
Step is a content management system, which is responsible for capturing a catalogue's commercial and rich media.
While commercial media pertains to the pricing and quantity aspects of printing, the rich data relates to the attributes of the media such as colour and auto-code.
The Step program possesses features for users, such as the ability to breakdown data into detailed attributes for easy manipulation of a product's individual characteristics and the capability to produce content for traditional printed catalogues, CD-ROM and Web catalogues from the same data source.
Users have the possibility of individual electronic proof viewing of all three media from within the Step system.
Most importantly, customers have round the clock online accessibility to their products by anyone with the proper login information, regardless of location utilising a standard web browser with internet access.
Not only can the service be accessed at any time, but it can also be utilised by all involved in the production process.
"Stibo Catalog also offer a 24-hour service of traditional pre-press service managing all aspects of the pre-press publishing process.
The Stibo ePrint is a workflow system that ties all the processes of print production, such as proofs, production plans, versions and approvals, together via the internet.
The service facilitates on-screen proofing of a document that is available for corrections within the final hour before a print deadline.
We beleive that customers will find with such a service is total visibility and total control of a product, as well as a shortened time to market.
The most noteworthy benefit is the measurable ROI, whereby customers will experience faster speed to market, allowing them to stay ahead of the competition.
"The approach we have adopted also equips clients to be better marketers by allowing them to efficiently produce the varied sales and marketing collateral that the market at large requires, which in turn can positively impact their bottom line.
These returns are not immediate, yet are realised soon after the implementation and familiarisation phases.
What's more, Stibo Catalog and Stibo Graphic are service providers that highly value customer feedback in order to maximise customer use of the installed technology and to improve efficiency.
"In order to fully appreciate the effectiveness of Stibo's technology, it is useful to look at a business user's response.
Faced with implementing a new product content management and publishing system capable of handling around 200,000 individual items and more than 30,000 high resolution images, Farnell InOne, knew that it faced a complex challenge.
Therefore, the company implemented Step and Stibo ePrint solutions four years ago in order to overcome its challenges and reap the benefits of web-based publishing services.
Dave Howarth, publishing systems manager at Farnell InOne explained: 'Four years ago, we realised that to grow and prosper we had to change our existing publishing system into a global enterprise content management system (Step) capable of handling multiple productions in three languages and for different publishing media.
The system that we had was an unsupported application which had evolved and grown as the business developed.
As our businesses expanded geographically and as those business needs grew to accommodate an increase in product lines, the publishing system couldn't cope with the increasingly varied and higher volume of sales and marketing collateral that the organisation needed.
Although this system was cost effective it was not efficient.
The challenges that we have faced throughout this project have been testing, but the results have been worth the effort.
We have achieved our initial aims of getting all the catalogues on to Step, reducing the time and cost of producing each of them and of producing the first set of master CD-ROM based catalogues'.
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