Is it REALLY Possible to Still Save Money in Print and Mail?
In the print and mail industry, we talk a lot about saving money through better efficiencies and postal optimization. Truth be told, our industry has been talking about saving money in print and mail for as long as high volumes of communications, correspondences and direct mailings have been sent out to consumers. It begs the question…can you still save money today in print and mail or have the techniques been all used up?
Saving money on the mailing part of Customer Communication Management (CCM), direct mail and/or other marketing products is top of mind for in-plants and service providers due to the regular shift in postal rates. In 2017, the concerns are a bit heightened because of the uncertainty around the Board of Governors, PRC review, postal reforms and rate cap future. Experts on postal rates are currently advising print and mailers to plan for a 2% rate increase in 2018 with the potential for the final rates to be few percentage points higher.
The good news for Print Service Providers (PSPs) and In-Plant print and mailing facilities is that technology does continue to create opportunities to save in the production process. And many organizations still have processes that have been difficult in the past to take from manual to automated. Like the adoption of smartphones and apps for daily tasks like banking and shopping, the print production floor is turning a corner where modular and provider agnostic software can not only integrate but monitor and optimize an environment. Difficult processes can be tackled with success.
Over the past 25+ years, our team at Solimar Systems has been continually developing print management, automated workflows, print and electronic communication enhancement and enrichment and postal optimization. This is why we are bullish on the ability to reduce your organizations, and many others, costs associated with your current processes. As part of our Chemistry platform, we recently announced the latest version of our visibility and oversight solution, as well as, advanced features for automatically combining like jobs on your production floor—and yes, you can manually combine them on the fly too.
Moreover, the batching features of the modular SOLitrack component of our Chemistry platform can also monitor for due dates on workflows and jobs defined and set in the system. If you have Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that must be adhered to in order to prevent fines from your customers or regulatory agencies, the latest release of SOLitrack allows you to set up these deadlines and then automatically take action to prevent missing your SLAs. In addition, event notifications and alerts can also be defined for jobs and workflows in order to monitor the production process and keep you up-to-date in real-time.
Why is the batching feature helping production environments turn a technology and efficiency corner? As production print engines continue to run at high rates of speed, batching together jobs with similar production and mailing needs into a single job that you can submit to your print engine (inkjet, toner, cut sheet) means it can run more efficiently and at its rated speed. This reduces change over time, waste from switching jobs and clutching or processing time. It also means that the finishing and mailing preparation process will be more efficient with the ability to obtain greater postal discounts. Pair that with our ability to work with presort mailing houses and you can create a powerful workflow that drives the highest level of cost savings available.
Some of the concerns we hear around being able to digitally commingle and batch work in a production environment is individual job tracking and reporting. As we developed this latest time and cost saving feature, we took that into consideration. Even after a batch is created, the ability to track and report on individual jobs within the batch is retained. The result: less manual processes, quicker completion of work and an overall reduction in costs and improvement in workflow efficiency.
While improving the speed at which you can complete work and optimize the print and mailing process, you can also boost your technology by leveraging our latest mobile visibility solution. In our recent CCM visibility and oversight blog, we share the benefits of SOLitrack Mobile. As a web-based client, it allows you to see your jobs, workflows, and notifications from any smartphone, tablet or computer. As a responsive experience, you can keep an eye on your entire production floor from your desk, at your favorite sporting event and even in the middle of the night when urgent customer calls come in.
We invite you to explore the latest technology that can help you shave costs off your print and mail processes while being able to better track and report on it. Contact us today to learn more and be sure to ask about our unique workflow assessment process.
For more information, call the Solimar Sales Team at +1.619.849.2800.