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so much preparatory work taking place before digital artwork
files arrive within your ‘premises’, we often find
ourselves cleaning and correcting files in order to get them
through pre-press. A printer in the USA is said to use online
pre-flight checking tools to check the integrity of the file
before it is delivered. If it is incorrect the customer decides
whether to send the file or abort the transfer, thus giving
them the opportunity to remedy the problem and save a premium
being charged by the printer for sorting it out. This is one
example of how you can extend your business processes into your
client base, adding value and reducing administration costs.
Trading electronically is about your business reaching out to
your clients so that it is easier for them to trade with you,
but whose responsibility is it anyway? Isn’t it up to
the client to get their files right in the first place?
How many times have you had a difference of opinion with a customer
concerning where the responsibility lies for something like
artwork trapping?
Surely if you offered your client a web page for artwork delivery,
the use of which was conditional to acceptance of your terms
of business, that would clear up any potential misunderstanding.
The Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002# makes it clear that
“...a service provider shall, prior to an order being
placed by the recipient of the service, provide to that recipient
in a clear, comprehensible and unambiguous manner...
(a) the different technical steps to follow to conclude the
contract;...
(b) the technical means for identifying and correcting input
errors prior to the placing of the order...”.
Therefore, when used as a platform for business the Web can
not only enforce your terms of business but can also resolve
problems before they are currently picked up.
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Supplier deployed eCommerce is a must. As an industry we tend
to deploy technology once there is a clearly expressed need
for it – take ISDN and digital print as examples. Buck
the trend, make your company easier to do business with and
make certain that you are ready when your customers wish to
begin trading electronically with your business. You have a
clear strategic path along which you can lead them. The strategy
that permits them to trade on your terms, send you the data
you need and in the format you want, will save you administrative
or repetitive work that is invariably difficult to charge for.
There are plenty of case studies and examples in the public
domain about supplier deployed eCommerce in retail, finance
and banking and it is easy to see why these supplier-managed
systems succeed – I mean, would you want to bank over
the Internet using a system you built yourself? There is one
sector of print that eCommerce has saturated; print management.
Whilst I marketed printChannel.com here in the UK, I saw print
management companies invest a great deal of effort into eCommerce,
seeing it as a means of simplifying their administration of
print jobs. With account handlers on-site as the sole point
of contact, eCommerce opened a direct connection to remote print
site(s) for delivering correct job specifications along with
robust artwork files. The print management philosophy is fine
tuned to service provision and business process management,
not just provision of print.
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