As promised, I wanted to share an example of how BPI Media Group's storefront solution has helped customers manage collateral & stationery. I'd like to share one story of how this has benefited an educational institution customer.
History: The school had previously ordered certain collateral and stationery items in bulk at the beginning of each school year. The materials were stored in various storage closets across campus, and no one could ever recall how many were ordered or when without tracking down purchase orders. Materials would "run out" without warning, and if there was a change on any piece, they'd typically wait until the next year because there were so many already printed...somewhere...if they could find them.
Problems: As you can tell, keeping up with order history and inventory management were two of the biggest challenges the school faced. Another problem was the amount of time that was spent typesetting business cards every time a faculty or staff member needed to order/reorder. One more concern was having people from various departments pull items from the storage closets without recording which department took it, so it could be tracked.
Solutions: BPI's storefront solution offered a means to help with all of these problems and concerns. The storefront's unique log in/password for each pre-approved user helped limit those who could order and also put in approval processes for certain items, so that there could be a sense of checks and balances for each department to not "over order" any particular item. Inventory counts are managed and reorder points set, so that if a pre-printed item reaches a low amount, an email is sent out notifying the designated person who can then choose to reorder to replenish stock (which is held in BPI's warehouse). For items that are simply print on demand, this feature wouldn't apply. The order history reports can be viewed/downloaded as csv files and sorted by a wide variety of filters that allow the user to see who has ordered, what they've ordered and how many & how often. This information can be used in the future to gauge how many should be printed at the onset of each year. One of the biggest time savers is the ability to have a business card template with all of the static information and fields where the user can type in the name, title, phone, email, etc for the individual's business cards. A pdf proof is available on the fly to review, approve and send into production.
Results: The customer can track their usage, spend less time ordering, have storage closets for more than just stationery by allowing BPI to print/store/ship the materials as ordered, and better manage the inventory levels. By using print on demand for some items, this saved money out of the print budget over the course of the year. Money and time saved = happy customers.
Drop me a note if you'd like to learn more about how BPI's storefront solution could help your company put an end to similar headaches.
Until next time...Elizabeth
