Lift off online for FT Print

Technology may evolve and customer requirements may change, but FT believes its secret to success is mixing leading-edge technology with one-to-one care and attention.

FT Print’s success over the last year has been founded upon a subtle concoction of sophisticated but simple technology and the kind of ‘arm around the shoulder’ care and attention that would make anyone feel valued. The beneficiaries of this mix of the traditional and the new have been its burgeoning client base.

There has been an acceleration of warp factor proportions in the use of the Hertford print management specialist’s software systems, based on Telekinesys’ equator, but this has been implemented in such a way that users have never felt neglected, never felt like they had been just left to get on with the system without comprehensive education and support from FT along the way.

In the space of just one year, the proportion of print orders placed through FT’s online system has rocketed: around 80% of the firm’s business (this year expected to touch the £20 million mark) is now received online, with 20% still communicated using more traditional methods. This, says FT’s managing director Tom Gurd, is a complete reversal of the respective proportions 12 months ago.

In the space of a year the company has trebled the number of users of the system and shortly will load its 10,000th user. With this growth has come a significant upturn in online ordering. This is best demonstrated by it taking almost 18 months to reach its first one million business cards designed and ordered online, while the second million took only three months.

“There’s not a customer that comes through the door that does not start with the online system. It has been a key part of our new business wins. The product has got better – we’ve invested in it to make it more user-friendly and more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It’s more tactile so it has become easier to backsell it to existing clients,” he says.

Partly the growth is because FT has been trying to push online ordering to clients, but in the last two years it has found that it is increasingly pushing at an open door in this regard. Customers want to order online, and expect their print management supplier to have the technology to allow them to do this.

On an individual user basis though, there is still a requirement for FT to take people through the process one step at a time. It’s requires resource, but FT is conscious of the importance of being there when customers take on new systems. It’s a crucial aspect of FT’s service offering.

“The care and attention right at the start of the process has been the cause of the success of the online system,” Tom Gurd continues. “It’s in the first 30 seconds that you have to make the right impression, and get buy-in, and when you have that there are fewer problems.”

FT’s sales director Ian Woolley takes up the theme, referring to a new client, UK express delivery service provider ANC, which transferred its print management requirement to FT Print during 2006.

He explains: “We’ve always said we’re big enough to cope, small enough to care, and I think it’s still appropriate. When we handled the transition of ANC we visited every depot – around 85 locations in a few days. It was a big change for the client and we are happy to put our arms around their shoulders to smooth the transition. We made the commitment to deal with all the local depots on a personal level and show them the system, and we achieved it.”

FT Print has traditionally been a specialist print management company for the airline industry, and while this specialisation remains, with the airline side of its business still growing, the company is a more rounded entity following the acquisition and integration of Wolverhampton print management firm ACT last year. Along with the Southampton direct mail operation Keywords Direct, the resultant group is a stronger enterprise with a forecast turnover of £20 million in the next year.

It is thanks to these additional aspects to FT’s service provision, as well as the Hertford office’s digital printing capability, that Woolley can describe the unified group as providing “print management with a twist”. He elaborates: “We own our own direct mail house, and we’ve got a very, very healthy understanding of data, the importance of it and what to do with data when you’ve got it. We’ve got a really good handle on complex data issues so we can also step into document process outsourcing.”

During the first half of 2007 the company also expects to gain its environmental ISO 14001 accreditation, and is indeed already earning plaudits for its environmental work with some clients. Most prominent in this respect has been the DVLA, by whom FT was awarded a three year contract to manage the supply of driving licence application forms and ancillary documents early in 2006. One eco-friendly measure implemented by FT has been that these documents will now be printed on FSC-certified paper stocks, but it has involved much more than this already.

Tom Gurd says: “We’ve looked at the whole process to see where we can drive out wastage and make the materials more environmentally-friendly across the whole supply chain and these are multimillion print runs.”

Approval is set to come right from the top as well, he continues, as the project will be held up as a “beacon of light” by the Government’s Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) in furthering its ongoing drive to improve the green performance of print and print purchasing.

By an accumulation of these kinds of incremental steps, WRAP hopes to meet

its targets, and it is through incremental progress that FT Print itself and the information technology it puts in place for customers will continue to develop.

There are targets for organic and acquisition growth and working with Telekinesys the equator system will evolve further. Says Tom Gurd: “It’s about small but constant incremental steps and there are more of those to take to make our customers’ lives and our own lives more efficient.”

ANC – Delivering Peace of Mind

ANC is an independent business services group, principally engaged in express delivery services throughout the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. It has developed into one of the most flexible logistics organisations in the United Kingdom, with more than 4000 people and a fleet of 2200 vehicles, operating from 105 locations.

Following a review of its Group’s printed requirements and current supply agreements, ANC decided to assess the benefits that can be derived from undertaking a competitive tender process for the future provision of its operational documentation, commercial print and marketing literature.

After evaluating Pre-tender Questionnaires from 20 companies, a tender was submitted to 8 organisations and, after careful consideration, a three year contract, valued at £3.5 Million, was awarded to FT Print Limited.

The main factors for ANC choosing FT Print were:

• In-depth knowledge of the express courier sector and its progressive documentation / labelling needs
• Attention to detail in its tender response and the ideas put forward on opportunities to improve the current supply and service offering
• The flexibility and functionality of its on-line ordering and reporting platform competitive pricing on the range of supply lines required by ANC’s network
• Ability to implement the contract within a very tight timeframe (5 weeks)
• Logistical locations to ANC’s two main sortation hubs
• A commitment to drive unnecessary costs out of its operational and supply chains

Henry Rusch, ANC Group’s IT Director says the handover and implementation of the contract went very smoothly and was assisted by FT visiting each of ANC’s 85 locations throughout the UK to explain the changes in the supply arrangements and the features of its equator on-line ordering platform.

“The executive team at ANC recognized that it was a risk in moving the management and supply of its network’s business critical documents from its incumbent service provider however, were comforted by the excellent references that were taken up and the manner in which the transition of services was handled. We have been delighted with the services provided by FT since 8th May 2006 when the contract started.”

Ian Woolley, the account director for ANC at FT Print strongly believes that the successful implementation and provision of a service offering of this nature can only be achieved through teamwork. The support provided to him by not only FT teams at Hertford and Wolverhampton and the company’s preferred supply partners, but also the teams at ANC’s head office in Newcastle under Lyme and ANC’s depots throughout the UK were an integral part of FT’s success.

“ANC’s strap-line is ‘Delivering Peace of Mind’, and it’s one that perfectly mirrors FT’s approach to contracts it manages for all clients including ANC,” adds Woolley.