RedTie leads the advance of web to print

This year is on target to be the year when web purchasing of print moves into the mainstream. Magazine publishers have long enjoyed the benefits from the swifter workflows that having a direct internet connection to the print provider gives; print management companies depend on internet workflows to drive production efficiencies and websites are the place to go to find business cards, greetings cards and other easy to specify types of print. Now a breed of software suppliers is providing the software tools for the ordinary printer to offer a ‘print management’ service, using a web interface to connect to specifiers for ordering and specifying standard items of print, for reprints, for approvals and for increasingly sophisticated work.

The numbers of printers adopting this type of workflow is small but growing rapidly. The software on offer started with simple store fronts created by skinning a shrink wrapped software application. This depends however on the printer being willing to market and develop the site and many lose impetus once they have signed up a customer to specify office stationery. Some have developed much more sophisticated applications to allow customers to manage complete campaigns, to personalise branded material and to gather information about what is ordered and when. These types of solution appeal most to companies with a number of outlets, hotels, pub chains, health and fitness clubs, high street retailers and so on. The advantage for the customer is that brand integrity is retained as the manager of each outlet selects from predesigned templates with approved images, logos and fonts. For the printer the arrangement takes him into a deeper relationship with the client through what is heading towards a print management service. The problem has been that it is a major commitment for a printer to massage the software, create the links to his MIS and workflows in order to set this up. Not many have done it.

Now there is a new breed of software supplier that is delivering the sophistication without the need for the printer to employ software experts. These are companies offering web to print on a Software as a Service basis. Here the developer manages the application and the servers which host the software. The printer can load up the artwork and can personalize the website so that appears under his URL or can make it appear in his customer’s colours and in a separate URL. All the background programming, updates and so on are taken care of by the developer leaving the printer to get on with sales and marketing.

Leading this movement is UK developer RedTie which has notched more than 100 sites and is expanding into Australia, South Africa, North America and India. Non English languages will follow.

The software was developed by a small digital printer in order to automate the capture of customer details and information and has grown into two versions: RedTie Template (RTT), to enable the easy ordering of standard items of print that everyone knows and understands, the business card, training manuals, direct mail and so on and RedTie Quotation (RTQ), which caters for more the more experienced print buyer. While RedTie has been talent spotted by HP Indigo and is used by many Indigo users as a result, it is not simply a tool for digital printers. “It’s about embracing a new technology to support all kinds of print media,” says Marian Stefani, RedTie’s managing director. “We are production agnostic – it’s about giving printers a new way to transact with their customers.”

The first customer was Suzuki, to manage the print for 250 Suzuki dealers that were more interested in selling cars and service for them than ensuring that the promotional materials they ordered matched the corporate identity. “There were clear benefits to them of using a templating solution: the system was as easy as ordering a CD or buying a flight; it was operational 24/7,” she adds.

The RTQ offering enables a more knowledge print buyer to receive an instant price for a job and therefore to tray different configurations of paper, format and finishing to measure the impact on price, something that estimators in most printers hate to do. Consequently automating this operation is a significant reduction in their overhead and creates time for more meaningful conversations.

The next stage in the development of the software is going to focus on this aspect of what technical director Phill Rodgers calls its “commercial logic”. He explains: “To create a pricing logic with a degree of finesse is fairly straightforward.” It’s a case of understanding the costs of running a machine or machines involved in the process, any materials involved, labour charges, overhead and a mark up. “But increasingly when we address a client business we are finding we are dealing with illogical pricing scenarios, when the price changes depending on the customer, on the workloads in the business, what the previous job was, time of day or month. This is going to be a more unique approach to handling commercial logic – however illogical.”

At the same time rules can be imposed on the customer side to limit what an individual can spend or routing decisions through the necessary channels for it to be approved. Other instances can make sure that correct images and addresses are defined for certain types of work.

Software as a Service is increasing in appeal as mainstream computing swings to working in the cloud using the increasingly reliable internet connectivity and broadband speeds. Google is leading the way in building software tools that begin to rival many Microsoft applications for a fraction of the cost. There is no need to stay on the update roundabout and the costs are minimal. So SAAS is set to grow within the print sector. Bytes Technology also offers a web to print application, Infigo, using this model, though it has not achieved the penetration that RedTie has established. Now the Northampton based company is poised to ride the wave of interest to the next level. Stefani says that from the outset RedTie has refused all approaches to supply the software to other companies under ‘white label’ arrangements. At Ipex in May however, she says RedTie is going to be announcing some big strategic alliances. “The partners we are choosing will make people sit up and think,” she says.

It will mean a stronger impetus to the development of web to print and in turn will start to transform many printers from the passive businesses whose task is merely to put ink on paper and deliver finished goods into companies that form deeper more beneficial relationships with their customers, something that print management has been markedly successful at. One of RedTie’s US customers sums it up neatly: “It has made us much more of a technology partner for our customers, rather than being just a printer.”


Brookes expands service with RedTie
Brookes Printers in Hanley, Staffordshire, was one of the first companies to sign up with Red Tie and now has several years experience with operating the software across a range of its clients. “When we started it was the next step we felt we needed to make,” says sales head Pam Green. “We are constantly striving for things that will give us a usp `and put us above other printers. Our customers can go on line and order from their desk exactly what they want, on demand.”

When the printer first installed the software it took a while to explain to customers. Now it has become easier both because Brookes has more experience to call upon and because what it offers chimes with the times. She adds: “Now many of our key clients are taking a keen interest. Those that use the system love the flexibility that the software offers, especially the fact that they can logon from anywhere and order exactly what they need. They find it a much more time-efficient way of working. From our point of view, it has changed how we communicate with clients for the better. We can now spend time nurturing customer relationships and generating new business rather than focusing on taking and chasing orders.

“It is also allowing us to offer much of what a print management company would be offering, so a customer that wants that style of service can receive it from a supplier he already has a relationship with.”

The plan for 2010 is to continue to roll out web to print and to continue taking advantage of the benefits that it brings.