Print
Solutions March 2006
Cover
story
Reality
Check, continued
Web-to-Print
Case
Study
Keeping
the Internet Simple
With
the help of web-to-print, Webb/Mason
becomes a one-stop shop for online
giant AOL.
By
LaShell Stratton
In
June 2004, America Online faced
a serious problem. The internet
giant had increased its clout
on the web by acquiring frequently
used online services like MapQuest
and Moviefone, Digital City and
Netscape. But with those acquisitions
came the challenge of controlling
the dissemination of brand stationery
and promotional materials in an
ever expanding empire.
“They
had fragmented print relationships
around the country and none of
their printers could provide them
with a solution,” says Doug
Traxler, executive vice president
of sales and marketing at Webb/Mason,
a print management provider based
in Hunt Valley, Md. “They
didn’t know what their spending
was. They had different people
controlling their logos. Many
technology companies that grow
fast have the same profile because
getting business stationery and
marketing collateral is the least
of their problems.”
Luckily,
AOL was already doing business
with Webb/Mason. Traxler says
his company had been helping the
internet conglomerate in “marginal
ways” for about two years.
Traxler told AOL that Webb/Mason
had the perfect tool that could
help the company handle all its
print needs and offer brand management
control. The solution was Webb/Mason’s
proprietary technology, Enterprise
Print Management (EPM) Online.
EPM Online, which has undergone
its fifteenth major structural
release since 2002, is an e-commerce
system that integrates the end
user’s print strategy, including
order, fulfillment, production,
inventory management and cost
control, with Webb/Mason’s
back-end distribution and warehousing
system.
“The
client can go on our web site
and find print-on-demand items
like stationery and business cards
or variable collateral like brochures
and signage that can be personalized
on the site and printed to a POD
device or offset device,”
Traxler says. “It can also
manage inventory of warehoused
items like sales collateral, marketing
collateral or even company stores.”
The
web-to-print management tool allows
for customization according to
the end user’s requirements.
“It allows our clients to
create customized catalogs that
are focused on the specific needs
of groups of users,” Traxler
says. “The catalogs can
be different for different groups
within the organization.”
It
did not take long for AOL to see
the benefits of the new web-to-print
system. According to Traxler,
EPM Online not only allowed AOL
to have all its brands on one
web site, but delivery time of
customized materials decreased
from two to three weeks to two
to three days. Stocked material
could be delivered in 24 hours.
“Time to market and speed
of response have definitely increased
for AOL. Costs have come down
because they are leveraging their
spending and funneling all their
print through one resource,”
he says.
Webb/Mason
also discovered that the fast
turnaround for end users meant
an increase in the number of print
order requests. “We are
at a running pace,” says
Brian Fritsche, CIO of Webb/Mason.
“The percentage of transactions
over the web is much higher.”
EPM
Online also allowed AOL to streamline
its print billing system. “They
had been processing hundreds of
vendor invoices from all over
the country for various print
requirements,” Traxler said.
“Now it’s integrated
into one electronic bill at the
end of the month that allows them
to charge back all the divisions
down to the cost center level.
It’s not just the
front end of the ordering that’s
been automated. It’s the
entire process.”
An
added plus for AOL was that it
did not have to train most of
its employees on how to use EPM
Online because of the user-friendly
interface. “We offered training
and they thought they would need
it because they are used to training
people on new software systems
and processes,” he says.
“We probably have about
500 users across AOL, so we had
a training breakfast over there.
But only 13 people showed up that
morning to get a bagel. The rest
were already placing orders.”
LaShell
Stratton is assistant editor at
Print Solutions magazine. Email
her your comments at lstratton@PSDA.org.
W2P
Implementation Tips
•
Develop a plan for the client.
“Have a written plan with
dates and milestones that you
and your client review,”
says Doug Traxler, executive vice
president of sales and marketing
at Webb/Mason. “We’ve
found that weekly scheduled meetings
prior to the launch are good for
this. If you leave it to email
and a hope and a prayer, it’s
going to fail or be much more
difficult to implement.”
You must provide the structure.
•
Remember, companies are vastly
different in how comfortable their
employees are in using the web.
Traxler says even at a company
like AOL with employees “who
you would think are internet savvy,
some ask simple questions like
‘How do I get to your site?’”
Lydia Ong, a customer service
representative at Webb/Mason for
the AOL account, says half a dozen
calls daily deal with questions
of this nature. Traxler suggests
that with each new deployment,
keep a list of frequently asked
questions and compose them into
a one-page tip sheet that can
be given to new end users.
•
Leave the announcement of the
product launch to the end user.
“The communication of the
new system needs to come from
the customer,” Traxler says.
“When we tried to announce
it, saying that ‘Webb/Mason
presents…,’ nobody
read that stuff. All communication
about the new system should come
from within.”
The
Nuts and Bolts of AOL’s
Web-to-Print Project
Because
EPM Online was available over
the web, it did not require AOL
employees to even download software
onto their computers. “It’s
a browser-based application,”
says Brian Fritsche, CIO of Webb/Mason.
To
set up AOL’s web-to-print
site, Webb/Mason gathered logos
and images from the company. “Sometimes
it may require us to do a little
digital photography,” to
help compose library of images
and templates, he says. Webb/Mason
also had to upload marketing collateral
and stationery from AOL that was
in QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign
formats. Fritsche says with the
help of intermediary software
Pageflex .EDIT and MPower, those
files were then converted into
a format that was compatible with
software designed by JAVA developers
at Webb/Mason.
Though
setting up an end user for web-to-print
can be a massive undertaking,
Fritsche says his company was
able to do this for AOL in a matter
of weeks. There were no delays
in the project’s execution.
“I would say that the matter
of delays is usually on the customer’s
end when they don’t get
material to us in enough time,”
he says.
Because
of the malleability of EPM Online
technology, Webb/Mason has been
able to change AOL’s web-to-print
site based upon the company’s
requests. “AOL just
rebranded all of their business
cards and stationery,”
says Doug Traxler, executive
vice president of sales and
marketing at Webb/Mason. “They
were able to do that seamlessly
because in the background we
were building all the new elements.
It was all top secret, and on
the day they wanted to go live,
EPM changed from one look to
the next and they made the announcement
that you can get your business
cards today. Two days later
everybody had the new branding.
That was EPM at its best. We
were able to do this in the
background, test everything
and have all the new brands
ready. They could have never
coordinated that without a web
interface.”
Cover
story continued on next page...
