The Hidden Issues Behind Web-to-Print

AS INCREASINGLY more printers develop online services and create print portals for their clients, it is becoming a business imperative for your in-plant to provide Web-to-print services. While vendors will be happy to sell you their software and services—as well as a full-service maintenance agreement—you may still have concerns (and rightfully so) about how easy E-procurement is to implement, and the skills and resources required. To help you, here are a few things you need to know to eliminate bottlenecks and costly expense overruns later in the game.

Start With A Plan

While some are successful “flying by the seat of their pants,” most successful entrepreneurs have a documented business plan, which includes marketing. John Foley, president of interlinkONE, a marketing services software provider, says, “Think about your name and your message, how you can provide more of a marketing look and feel. You need to redefine your business plan, and plan to strengthen your marketing plan by creating print and Web opportunities with your new software solution.”

Your business plan should include a comprehensive marketing plan, as well as a financial analysis of the hardware, software and people required to offer this new service. Additionally, consider whether your staff can support the customization for your Web-to-print service or whether you need to purchase professional services from your vendor. You should try to identify your additional requirements prior to implementation, and receive a price quote up front so you can plan your financial investments according to your business priorities and expense. The professional services investment alone may disqualify a particular vendor, so this is important information.

How will you create market awareness of your new services to your clients? If you have a strictly print production Web site, will you meet with clients face-to-face and provide training on how to upload jobs, or will you hold Webinars for branded sites’ offerings? Will you send postcards, e-mail messages with a link, postcards with PURLs (personalized URLs), or perhaps a newsletter with Web addresses or links?

Whatever your plans, the benefits of a consistent marketing effort are always intrinsic to the success of your business plan. In your plan you will need to consider ways to charge your clients for the new services you are offering. Will you charge them monthly or charge them for storing previous orders? How will you add this new service to your current business operation plan? Will you open a new department or include this in prepress services?

Your good business operating plan will determine the success of your ability to earn back your investment on new software and grow your revenues over time.

Staff Cooperation is Essential

Whenever you start a new business service offering, it is always challenging to get your staff on board. Perhaps you have someone with an entrepreneurial spirit or a technical resource that has shown strength understanding software; these are excellent resources to tap into.

Implementing Web-to-print requires the willingness to become a change agent. All levels within your organization will be affected by the new business model. Customer service representatives will need to develop their talk track; production will need to establish a traffic cop and workflow; and accounting will need to load pricing tables, validate estimating and ensure information can be uploaded to invoices.

While it might be tempting to have an individual on staff assume the role of technical manager in charge of implementation for Web-to-print, to maximize productivity you may consider making this a full-time specialist position. Your Web-to-print implementation specialist can oversee workflow as a traffic cop and support software updates. While in the past it was necessary to understand HTML, today’s Web-to-print technology has code written on top of the HTML that makes it easy to plug in items such as pricing, text or templates. More advanced full-time specialists may provide further detailed customization to the site as needed.

Implementation Timeline

While I have spoken with some companies who say they implemented their Web-to-print solution within three months, other E-procurement implementations are known to take longer. This may depend on the resources available and the technical expertise, but if you want to customize the software with additional features, functionality and workflow integration, it may take longer.

You should set a realistic timeline with the vendor and clearly define roles and responsibilities for implementation. Of course, if you decide to implement client-branded sites, with continued practice your implementation can become much more streamlined.

Customer Service

How will your customers perceive your new solution for submitting their jobs to you? Some clients feel it takes away from the relationship; they like the one-on-one customer service response and want to know they can call you. If you are launching your own print production site, you need to find a way to communicate to your clients that, even though they are using a Web service, you still are reachable and understand their requirements.

One way to handle this is to put your customer service phone number on all pages of your Web site so they know how to find you. Add contact information, including photos of key personnel, and call clients to acknowledge when a job is submitted or a job is printed.

Solvency of Company

I’ve had the experience of being on site at a commercial printing facility whose Web-to-print provider had closed that morning. This is a crisis you want to make sure you avert. (Fortunately another company assumed the provider and they were back up late in the day.)

Does the company you’ve selected have the technical resources to handle your site? If this is an applications service provider (ASP) and they are hosting your site, what is the depth of the server capacity, disaster recovery and back up? Do they have the financial resources to grow and add resources as they continue with more placements?

Problem Resolution Process

While everyone wants to believe your software will never crash and there will never be productivity issues, the reality is you must plan for the worst. In establishing your contract with a Web-to-print supplier, an important question to ask is what type of turnaround time you can expect when there are problems with the software. Consider how they prioritize and rank problem issues, and ask if they can supply you with a written description of their problem resolution process. You will want to fully understand their internal organizational structure and resources chain of command based on depth of product knowledge and problem resolution skills.

Implementing a Web-to-print system in your in-plant will take a lot of preparation, but the payoff will make it all worthwhile. Scott Perry, prepress manager at Metropolitan Printing Co., in Portland, Ore., offers this observation: “The response from our customers has been outstanding. They can’t wait to get their products up and running, and those who have contracted with us for branded sites are excited as well; the ability to control their branding locally, nationally, or globally is a big factor in working with us.”

Reprinted with permission from GATFWorld. Copyright 2008 by the Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (www.gain.net) All rights reserved.

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Nancy Wallan is a graphic communications consultant focused on business development. She supports her clients with business planning for revenue growth, writes industry marketing materials and is a featured speaker at industry events. You can reach her at nancy@nwallanconsulting.com.