The future of printing: Web to Print

Web-to-Print installation produces revenue growth of 30%

A/S Varbas is a company in Oslo, Norway, offering a wide variety of facility services, including warehousing, packaging and fulfilment services, as well as a mechanical shop.

One of the firm’s business units is dedicated to offering digital print services to businesses in the vicinity. The unit has grown from a single-person print shop five years ago to a successful digital print service provider employing 6 staff and print volume of over 3 million prints per year.

The challenge

In the year 2000, Varbas was looking for new revenue opportunities. As Roger Kristiansen, General Manager of the Varbas print centre, says: “Growth in volume had levelled off, and we wanted to use the print production capacity we had in our print shop more effectively. We had a number of small clients, but were looking for bigger customers who would give us a substantial increase in our print volumes.”

The solution

During a series of conversations with Konica Minolta, Kristiansen learned about the possibilities of setting up a web portal, providing customers with a new, simpler way of submitting print jobs. This would also reduce the time spent internally on job submission processes. Mr. Kristiansen realised this would enable him to spend less time on the acceptance process and more time acquiring new customers.

While Varbas was considering this, Konica Minolta became aware that one of their other customers, a consultancy firm in Oslo, had decided to outsource all its internal CRD activities, and was looking for a print service provider to take care of its printing needs. This included reports and training manuals, which were too big to print on the local MFPs. The key need was that the print ordering process had to be standardised using a web portal, and that delivery was prompt. Konica Minolta introduced Varbas to the consultancy firm, and the two Norwegian firms came to an agreement about providing the print services.

The result

With this major customer on-board, Varbas implemented the AccurioPro Flux Ultimate, setting up a special web portal for this consultancy firm. Office managers from the consultancy firm were authorised to access the portal when ordering print jobs.

In the first full month of operation alone, Varbas’ web portal generated some € 10,000 in extra revenue; since implementation, print volume has grown to an average of € 12,000 per month. This represents approximately 30% growth in revenue Varbas did not have before.

Today, some 20% of total print volume produced by Varbas is generated through the portal. Even jobs submitted by e-mail or other channels are entered through the web portal internally, because it automatically generates price quotations, and links the administration to each print job. Within a few years, therefore, the firm’s Web2Print solution has become the backbone of its ordering process.

Future outlook

Thanks to the huge growth in print volume generated by the web portal, Varbas is now offering web submission portals to other customers as well. “One of Varbas’ other divisions has a large warehousing customer, a public service company,” says Kristiansen. “We’re now talking to them about reducing their pre-printed stock, and ordering those prints on-demand through a web portal, where all the templates are already loaded.”

With historic origins going back to the 18th century, the public University of Miskolc in northern Hungary has today evolved into a scientific centre of regional and national importance. Earth Science & Engineering, Materials Science Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering & Informatics still are the most important faculties. However, the fields of Economics, Law, Arts, Health and Music are also covered, offering a comprehensive university education that fulfils the requirements of the Bologna System. In line with this and joining forces with Konica Minolta as their sole partner, the university achieved a comprehensive modernisation of its printing facilities that includes convenient web-to-print as well as flexible on demand production of printed materials for students, lecturers and external customers.

Historical with a modern touch

The beginnings of the University of Miskolc in Hungary go back to the 18th century, when a technical school of mining and metallurgy was first founded in the area. Today, the university is the biggest higher educational institution of Northern Hungary and a scientific centre of great regional and national importance. The university has 9 different faculties, of which Earth Science & Engineering (formerly mining), Materials Science Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering & Informatics are the institution’s strongest. Since 2006, the university has been completely restructured into an internationally oriented organisation that focuses on students being educated within the Bologna System. According to its motto, the university considers itself “a competitive member of the European higher education region.” These days, the number of students exceeds 12,000.

From rigid offset production ...

The university’s central printing facilities (CRD) are run together with the university library and the publishing department. Print production is extensive and includes all documents and materials required in larger quantities, such as

• Educational material, e.g. lecture documentation, handbooks, examination forms, etc.
• Marketing collateral, including flyers, brochures, newsletters, business cards, etc.
• Student magazines
• Course material ordered by students
• General print orders from external customers

In the past, this CRD relied on inflexible offset technology and was staffed with a team of 7 operators. The entire setup was time-consuming and ineffective as production was based on large offset print runs so that the extensive material quantities produced lasted for long periods of time. Consequently, mistakes could not easily be corrected, prints frequently became outdated and a lot of printed material was wasted, not even taking into account the huge amount of space required for storage of the prints. In other words, the entire operation was much more costly than it needed to be!

... to flexible printing on demand

Eventually the decision was made to turn the university CRD into a profit center. The challenge was to transform the production unit into working more flexibly and productively, to streamline the order and production workflows, and to enhance the overall cost efficiency. Joining forces with Konica Minolta, two professional printing presses were introduced (bizhub PRO C6000 and bizhub PRO 1051, both with SD-506 finishing equipment).

The second essential change was a comprehensive modernisation of the university’s IT, enabling users to transmit their print jobs via a customised University Internet page. To achieve this, Konica Minolta installed AccurioPro Flux Ultimate. With this system the CRD is no longer available only for internal use but also to students and lecturers; and print services are even offered to external customers. The Print Room operates now as a profit centre for the organisation. With the new digital presses, all of the printed products vrequired by the university are flexibly produced in small quantities and in much better quality. The fact that new “customers” could be gained increases the overall print volume and makes the operation of the CRD economically more viable. At the same time, the entire operation now only requires 4 employees instead of the 7 that were needed before.

Enhanced service and user satisfaction

The solution implemented by Konica Minolta provides comprehensive answers to all of the university’s needs and challenges. By combining hardware and software from one supplier, the university is now only dealing with a single professional and highly competent partner who provides everything – and helps Miskolc University to deliver a modern and up-to-date service to lecturers and students. Besides the gain in flexibility and productivity, the improvements achieved include for example cost savings of up to 40% thanks to the reduced manpower now required to run the CRD. In addition, green aspects and sustainability are fulfilled by dramatically reducing the amount of printed paper and especially wasted prints.