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Solutions June 2006
Cover
Story
TOP100distributors
Number
One
Workflow
Management Restructures
WorkflowOne
merges with The Relizon Company
and forges ahead as the industry’s
largest distributor.
BY
REBECCA TRELA
In Brief
Acquiring
The Relizon Company pushed WorkflowOne
into the No. 1 spot in Print Solutions’
Top 100 Distributors. The company
is redesigning its iGetSmart online
portal and focusing on project
analysis tools for clients.
Company:
Workflow Management, WorkflowOne
Headquarters:
Workflow Management is based in
Greenwich, Conn., and WorkflowOne
is based in Dayton, Ohio
Founded:
1927
Principal:
Greg Mosher, CEO and chairman
of Workflow Management Inc. and
Tim Schriner, president of WorkflowOne
Employees:
4,600
This
year’s top distributorship
spot has been taken by Workflow
Management Inc., a company based
in Greenwich, Conn., reporting
$1.2 billion in annual sales.
Workflow Management is a parent
organization which includes United
Envelope, Freedom Graphics, and
distributorship WorkflowOne, based
in Dayton, Ohio. WorkflowOne,
which represents about 75 percent
of Workflow Management’s
revenue, is a newly-combined entity
of The Relizon Company (previously
$900 million in sales, which included
Wilmer, Formcraft, Dataforms,
and others) and Workflow (previously
$300 million, also listed as SFI/Standard
Forms Inc.) Last year, the Workflow
distributorship, listed as “Workflow”
but encompassing United Envelope
and Web Trends, listed its sales
dollars separately, taking the
No. 3 position on the Top 100
Distributors list. The company,
which became WorkflowOne last
June, declined to report specific
figures for the distributorship
this year.
WorkflowOne,
however, is no newcomer to large
sales, ranking in the list’s
top four slots for the past eight
years. But last May, Workflow
Management, lead by CEO Greg Mosher,
acquired the Dayton-based Relizon
Company, propelling the combined
entity to stratospheric revenue
heights.
 |
| Members
of WorkflowOne’s management
team in the company’s
Dayton offices: John Nicely,
VP of marketing (left),
and Ian O’Brien, VP
of information techonlogy,
are seated; Tim Schriner,
president (left), and Tom
Dailey, general manager
of billing solutions, are
standing. |
The
past year has been one of intense,
full-time integration, says John
Nicely, WorkflowOne’s vice
president of marketing. His primary
task has been marrying the business
philosophies, cultures, clients
and technologies of two companies
with a century of print commerce
behind each. “The biggest
snag whenever you take companies
of this size and merge them,”
he says, “is the fear of
uncertainty. What’s going
to happen to the old company?
What’s going to happen to
the people?” The past
four months, he says, have seen
a flurry of memos, press releases,
conferences, senior leadership
meetings and town hall question-and-answer
sessions – reassuring employees
and the community through an open
communication onslaught.
Since
the beginning of 2006, the combined
WorkflowOne/Relizon management
team, which includes members of
both former companies, has been
devising a new strategy to market
the company under the WorkflowOne
banner. Although market tests
indicated the word “workflow”
had a better reception among prospects,
the combined company features
attributes of both businesses.
“Relizon
brought us a lot of older relationships,
both with vendors and clients,”
says Nicely. The company was also
known for expertise with marketing
products and strategies, which
forms a substantial part of WorkflowOne’s
future business aims.
“We
can’t be everything to everyone,”
says Ian O’Brien, the company’s
chief technology officer. Instead,
WorkflowOne has chosen to focus
on providing and streamlining
all aspects of a company’s
branded items—everything
bearing a logo or an insignia.
Workflow hopes this will further
the company’s longtime goal
to streamline supply chain management
and fulfillment. It plans to expand
and revise the popular iGetSmart
online ordering portal, with smaller
and larger offerings for Relizon’s
diverse client base.
The
new evolution of the portal, O’Brien
says, will emphasize the client’s
ability to share information online
and manage digital assets in addition
to its original commerce capabilities.
It will incorporate both retail-style
selling and the base documents
used to create online proofs,
so all aspects of a project can
be managed, stored and available
for collaboration on the internet.
“In
a few short months, we got an
unparalleled portfolio of service
capabilities,” says O’Brien,
who is responsible for merging
the two companies’ technologies.
“What differentiates us
from our competition is this flexible
solution where the client can
do everything from end to end
with their brand products.”
George
Sidel, a marketing manager for
the East Coast-based Rita’s
Ice franchise, interacts with
Workflow employees on a daily
basis. “They have been great
to work with,” he says.
“Workflow has saved us a
lot of time and headaches, and
has helped us maximize our potential.”
The
distributorship has taken aspects
of iGetSmart to revamp Rita’s
online ordering process, creating
a completely new site. Rita’s
has expanded its offerings from
gift certificates and a single
t-shirt to include beach blankets,
packages, hats, mugs, bags and
other novelties.
“Workflow
gives us a lot of analysis and
help,” Sidel says. Support
for the web site includes weekly
sales reports per item, gross
profit vs. expenses, inventory
reports and a weekly face-to-face
meeting.
Client
relationships, Nice says, are
also key in WorkflowOne’s
culture, which emphasizes evaluation
mechanisms. Each new account is
approached with an analysis questionnaire,
where the distributorship outlines
its account promises. At the end
of every project, WorkflowOne
delivers an ROI report and a summary
of how the results measure against
the initial contract. This allows
the company to open the door for
new or expanded business. It also
helps the client see the company
is committed to an ongoing relationship.
“We’re
growing rapidly, and WorkflowOne
is able to accommodate our growth
and manage our inventory overall,”
says Sidel. Rita’s has 360
stores currently and plans to
add 250 more next year.
In
the coming year, Nicely says,
WorkflowOne will also emphasize
a client’s choice of vendor
for each job. “We want to
make it very transparent where
our source materials are coming
from,” he says. Pre-acquisition,
Relizon had been manufacturing
about half of its offerings, and
WorkflowOne was producing 15-20
percent. “We can only truly
manufacture about a third of our
sales,” Nicely says. “There
really is not a struggle on either
side of the equation. We were
a little more vendor-neutral than
Relizon was, but we haven’t
found any objections from clients
thus far. It all boils down to
the choice they have.”
Both
internal and external manufacturing,
he says, are regulated by a complex
series of ratings, surveys and
audits, stemming from the Six
Sigma and Lean methods. Both in-house
and external suppliers can lose
a deal to supply to WorkflowOne
if service or quality isn’t
met.
“I
think that sets us apart from
the competition,” Nicely
says. “It’s not an
inexpensive task, trust me, but
the results are measurable.”
WorkflowOne has invested heavily
in self-auditing and numbers-based
reporting.
“Culture
is not something that happens
overnight,” Nicely asserts,
explaining the initiatives are
part of a broad, three-year plan
to stay in the financial, manufacturing
and health care markets. Mosher
indicated WorkflowOne will continue
to look for acquisitions and alliances
and perhaps expand into retail,
Nicely says.
“It’s
an exciting time,” says
Sharon Williamson, director of
brand management and communications.
“We’re passionate
about our future, and about technology.
This is truly the future of our
business.”
Rebecca
Trela is an assistant editor at
Print Solutions magazine. Email
her your comments at rtrela@PSDA.org.
