How Modern Web to Print Solutions Make Printers More Agile (So They Can Win More Clients)
Let’s start by briefly defining the somewhat nebulous term “agile”. When talking about business operations, “being agile” is about the ability of a company to adapt quickly and little internal friction. Whether the cause of the adaptation is positive, like a new revenue opportunity or new market to pursue, or negative, like a competitive pressure or a supply chain complication.
For printers, agility has become an increasingly important measure of success, certainly more than in the past when market trends and technology took decades to evolve rather than months.
The commercial printers working today that will thrive the most in the coming years are the ones who will find ways to respond to technological shifts, unexpected market changes, and evolving customer expectations. And not just respond, but respond with speed and efficiency. This requires more than reactivity; it requires having the right business infrastructure in place to change quickly and therefore “be agile”.
It also requires ways to collect data and make use of that data. And a flexible mindset. The ability to not get bogged down by the way things “were” done but rather pivot and swerve in response to the constant stream of change and data coming down the pipeline.
For printers, much of this comes down to a willingness to get on board with technological advancements in software tailored for the modern print operation.
But for all the possibilities that these new software tools offer, there are just as many challenges that face the enterprising modern printer looking to achieve an agile operation.
Challenges of being Agile
Some of the most prominent challenges to becoming an agile commercial printer include inflexibility, software bloat, and lack of data insight.
Inflexibility is the biggest, broadest, and most ubiquitous blocker to becoming a truly agile modern printer. And more often than not, the root of inflexibility in a print business is outdated software. Workflow solutions come in all shapes and sizes these days and it can be hard for printers to wade through the sea of options to find what they really need to achieve agility as a print provider.
One of the trickiest things about inflexibility in particular is that it is the kind of problem that can lie hidden for years. Many printers end up making due with old software that they acquired for more ad hoc reasons, solution to specific problems, or to support a specific big ticket customer. This can lead to a situation where it can be hard to see from the inside just how much the outdated solution is holding you back.
Sometimes, this ad hoc approach to software acquisition can lead to software bloat, where a bunch of software tools all serve very specific purposes but don’t play well with each other. This severely limits the potential for further optimization and automation.
What it means for a web to print solution to be agile
As much as you can point at software to be the cause of the problems keeping printers from being agile, it’s also undoubtedly the solution. That difference depends entirely on what software solution you are talking about and the business practices of the team behind it. Instead of going through every category of print software, from MIS to WMS to ERP and beyond, we’ll narrow in to web to print solutions here.
The best web to print solutions go far beyond offering order placement portals for customers. The most modern and capable of this category of print software are full-fledged workflow automation hubs. In addition to giving printers and their clients the tools they need right now, the top of class web to print solutions are designed to evolve with the times. What traits of a web to print solution can you look for to know whether or not it fall into the “agile” category? Let’s take a closer look at the specific ways in which web to print solutions enable printers to become agile.
Strong infrastructure to handle scaling as you grow
One aspect of agility in business is the ability to scale without friction. This means as your company grows, you don’t want to have to adjust major aspects of your operations like what web to print solution you use.
The right web to print solution will be able to large throughput of order volumes and make it easy for you to ramp up volumes without changing much of anything at all.
This might seem like a simple task but it requires a sufficiently strong system architecture and a level of adaptability at the code level that not all solutions have in spades.
Wide variety of functionality to meet the varied needs of your clients
To be an agile printer you need to not just match the expectations and pace of one client but of ALL your clients. And no two clients are the same, especially when talking about enterprise-scale clients. This means you need a web to print solution that can handle a WIDE array of customer needs such as complex business rules.
The more adaptable the functionality of your software is, the better you can adapt to the changing needs of clients and unexpected needs of prospective clients.
Frequent updates and responsive feature development
Speaking of responding and reacting to client needs, sometimes you get a client who is requesting something your platform simply cannot do. Or perhaps this is a prospective client who has a wishlist item you haven’t had any experience offering before.
In those kinds of situations, depending on how intensive the request is, sometimes those features can be accommodated if the team behind your web to print solution is agile enough. This kind of agility on the software side of things can be greatly beneficial for printers in the long term as it means nothing is set in stone and the system will continue to evolve with the market AND with the input of the web to print users.
An open responsiveness to feature requests and frequent software updates are hallmark traits of a truly agile web to print solution and partner.
Integrate-ability
No software solution is going to be able to cover every segment of business for a print provider. Because of this, bottlenecks can easily form at the junctions in the order workflow where one system’s process ends and another begins.
The way to eliminate these bottlenecks and create a more automated, efficient, and streamlined operation is with integration. That’s why a web to print solution that is designed and maintained by the vendor with integrations in mind is key to achieving business agility and a holistic flow.
With modern APIs and an agile mindset, the best web to print solutions won’t slow a printer down when they find themselves needing to upgrade or migrate to, for instance, a new MIS system. This means being able to integrate not just with a handful of pre-developed connectors but having the agile design necessary to create new integrations in the future with relative ease.
The Long-Term Benefits of Finding an Agile Web to Print Partner
Ultimately, a print provider is at least in part limited in their ability to adapt to new client requests, prospective client asks, and changing market trends by how agile their web to print solution is.
In other words, it’s worth it to find a web to print partner who is willing to go the extra mile to create not just a great solution for printers but a constantly evolving and updating solution. Having software that can adjust to your business growth and the ever-changing needs of clients is what it means to modernize and thrive in today’s print industry.
