The Importance of Supplier Equipment Lists

Patrick Henry blogged a great article recently on Print CEO about the importance of equipment lists to print buyers. I want to expound on this a bit in that not only is it important but as much information as you can provide about your services and capabilities the better. Our customers find that one of the most important pieces in our system is the ability for the supplier to add their equipment to a master list and the ability for the buyer to sort and look for suppliers with certain capabilities. We give the buyers and suppliers a set of profile tools that give them the flexibility to look for or provide information about Equipment, Products, Users, Quality Managers or Key contacts, and any additional profile information the supplier would like to provide to arm the buyer with as much information about their company as possible. Cross-Wind also allows the buying organization to categorize suppliers based on Minority or Women owned businesses and add regions to their supplier base to allow buyers to look for suppliers in certain regions of the country. Those regions can also be defined by the buying organization to tailor to their specific needs. We are also working with our customers to make the supplier profiles even more interactive to give the most information possible to the buyers including current supplier scoring as determined by the buying organization. Equipment lists are extremely important but so is as much information as a supplier can provide to the buyer to help them make a more informed buying decision. Specialized Procurement Platforms (SSP's) should not be about quoting and buying but about informing the buyer.

Evaluating Supplier Responsiveness

Supplier Responsiveness is one of the key issues that management teams are always concerned with. "How do I know many suppliers are responding in a timely manner to my requests?" Some might ask "Why should I even be concerned with this?" If you are in an outsourcing environment where you have customers relying on you to provide responses to a request in a timely manner then this becomes extremely important. Even if your customer is an internal customer likely their projects are time sensitive and if your suppliers are not submitting responses in a timely fashion then how responsive can you be to your customers? Well I often hear buyers say; "I have a pretty good idea of market price so I will just submit my own estimated cost with fudge factor built in." EEGGAADDSS!!! Your suppliers are the cost experts, they are the ones that should be supplying you with pricing not by educated guess.

The ability to measure supplier responsiveness is crucial in being able to evaluate your suppliers. Tools should be available to tell you how long it takes a supplier, from the time the request is submitted to the time the request is responded too. On a per request basis and overall for a time period. You should be reporting on the following areas:
Supplier, Quote ID, Time Sent, Time Opened, Time Submitted or Time Declined.
Then from a time range you should be able to evaluate;
Number of Quotes Submitted, Number Responded Too, Percentage of Responded, Number Declined, Percentage of Declined, Average Response Time, Average Decline Time.

This will give the buyer the ability to evaluate supplier responsiveness on an on-going basis to keep suppliers responding in a timely manner. Now if you do not actually DO anything with this information then what good is the information.

What to do with the information -
Once you have begun collecting this information you should make this information accessible to your suppliers instantaneously so a supplier can review at any time and be able to adjust their processes to keep up with your response standards. OH you don't have any response standards? Well take some time (3 to 6 months) to look at your suppliers response time overall and average out based on what ALL of your suppliers response times are and establish a set of criteria to meet your companies needs. There is not a given set of times or national standards for responsiveness, nor should there be. These standards should be set by each company to be able to meet their needs. Suppliers should be informed of your companies expectations and should decide whether they can meet those expectations on a regular basis. If they do not feel they can meet YOUR needs then you should consider whether they are the right supplier choice for your company. I can almost guarantee with a high degree of confidence, that if your expectations are reasonable, that most suppliers can meet those expectations that you establish and if they won't there is a supplier in the industry that will! Suppliers are willing to meet your needs as long as they have a way to be able to measure themselves and to be able to communicate with you when they cannot.
Once your criteria is established and you have communicated that criteria with your suppliers you MUST measure and evaluate them and be willing to call suppliers on the carpet when they do not meet your standards. In other words, some suppliers may pay you lip service when you communicate that criteria so you need to be prepared to implement any penalties that were agreed upon. The first time you issue penalties will likely be the last time you have to issue penalties. Suppliers learn quickly that if they agreed up front and you show that you are serious, they will comply with your standards. If they honestly have looked at their processes and cannot comply they will tell you and likely pull themselves out of the competition. Suppliers are in business to make money just like your company so if something is costing them they would rather walk away than to constantly flush money down a hole.

Staple Offer for Corporate Express REJECTED

According to the Associated Press Corporate Express management rejected the proposal within about 2 hours of the offer being made public. CE officials sited the proposal as significantly undervaluing Corporate Express and failing to reflect CE's value.

http://news.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1074569&srvc=home&position=recent

Is it time to consider PDF a threat?

As Joel Hruska points out in his article on ARS Technica, Adobe seems to not be doing themselves any favors once again. Printers should seriously consider the possible damage that could be caused to a 6 figure piece of equipment because of a $49.00 piece of software. Read Joels article here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080212-is-it-time-to-consider-pdf-a-threat.html

New Customer Implementation for Cross-Wind

I am sitting in the Newark airport after leaving a new customer implementation that I have been on all week. It is Raining and flights are delayed so I thought this the perfect time to update the blog.
I have spent Monday through today in the customers office setting up print product templates to meet the customers specific needs and to add their supplier base and the buyers into Cross-Wind I will try to give you a breakdown of my week and the customers response to all of this.
Day 1
was spent understanding the customers current purchasing processes and mapping out Cross-Wind to fit that process. In addition, I reviewed a demonstration site with the customer to show them how their process would look once their application was set-up. I also added all of the customers suppliers information into the system. One of the great things about Cross-Wind, is the ability for the customer to put their specific vendors in the system.
Day 2
Set-up of modules to fit the customers need, I added the customers buying team and assigned access permissions, from there we reviewed product templates and inserted attributes for the customers templates, we applied pricing structures for their templates and we built the templates to be used.
Day 3
We reviewed the templates and pricing applied to each and then created the product-to-supplier associations. When this was completed we did a final over view of the administration tools and then began a complete walk through with the customer of their application and made minor site adjustments on the fly.
Day 4 TRAINING DAY
8:00 AM we set-up for Buyer training which was split into two sessions to allow for supplier training in between. We trained the buyers in the process of creating a project, specifying the product, selection of suppliers, and submission of the RFQ. At this point the suppliers were receiving quotes within the system and allowing them to begin review so we immediately went into supplier training. The suppliers called in to a conference bridge and a LiveMeeting demo of how to respond to quotes. The supplier training session was completed in one hour and all suppliers were able to login and begin sending responses to our training quotes. After lunch the buyers were trained to review the quotes and how to submit proposals to their customers and how to submit purchase orders back to the suppliers. The buyer and customer training was complete by 3:00 PM and the buyers spent the rest of the day practicing.
Day 5 System Live Day
When the buyers reported to work this morning they began entering live quotes within the system and began receiving quote responses from their supplier base. I answered follow-up questions and helped the buyers with any problems they were having in navigating the system. I thanked everyone for their time and the opportunity to learn another customers processes.
Overall, What a great week! The customer is extremely pleased with how Cross-Wind works and how flexible it is for them. I will follow-up with them most of next week to ensure that it is functioning in the manner they expected and I will return to their location in about 6 weeks to do a follow-up and to show them how to use the custom and scheduled report features. In addition we have tentatively scheduled a 3-day session to implement another of their buying facilities into Cross-Wind in the next 6 weeks. I can't wait to reveal the customers name, but until approvals and finalized contracts are complete I cannot. But it will show how flexible and wide ranging our customer base is.
Well I hope all have a great weekend and It looks like my flight will only be 2 and a half hours delayed!!
John

Are Reverse Auctions good for the Print Industry?

So the question has come up again; "does Cross-Wind do Reverse Auctions?" My biggest concern is why are buyers so infatuated with reverse auctions? I find it hard to believe that anyone in the print industry would even consider these. Have the lessons not been learned? I really would like further feedback on this from the print supplier/printers perspective.

I can tell you that I have personally sat in on reverse auctions with a printer, as an observer and I can tell you it was quite painful for the print supplier. The auction was a long duration auction lasting 3 days. The supplier reviewed the specifications and had questions as did other suppliers apparently by the feedback response that was given to the questions. Of course no one really wants to ask a question about the specs on an open forum as that may give away something none of the other bidders had considered and if the customer is not accepting questions any other way then the questions often go unanswered. The specifications in the suppliers eyes were not complete so therefore they felt they were unable to provide the best pricing and without being able to consult directly with the customer the price would not be complete. Also pricing did not start coming in to the auction site until the last 3 or 4 hours and then got really heated in the last few minutes which by looking at the price differences that printers were providing there was margin the whole time. In addition, the customer was fairly savy in that they were using a ringer. They had a supplier that truly had no intention of doing the job but was there strictly to drive the price as low as possible. Every time pricing was submitted the ringer would respond within a minute or two and counter the price by a percentage point. So if a print supplier was truly interested in the job they were forced to drop the price even further if they wanted it. The print supplier I was working with had decided early on that they were not going to get the work and that this was a waste of their time. The supplier estimated the job with their standard markup, a discounted price, and with their cost. When the auction started he offered up his discount price immediately which was a 0.5% profit margin. Within an hour he countered with his cost price which meant no profit on the job. One minute later the ringer countered that price which would have put the print supplier at a 1% loss. The right thing to do for the printer would have been to walk away at that point. However the printer knew e needed to fill the press and chose to go .5% lower (now at a 1.5% loss.) With a half hour left in the auction another supplier countered his offer. The printer while frustrated chose at this point to walk away from the job. Now once the price went below cost the printer spent most of his time that afternoon trying to run different scenarios as to how they could cut cost on the project to win the bid. This was a very painful experience for the supplier as they met and engaged the production department and pre-press in devising ways that cost could be trimmed, but without the answers or the ability to ask questions of the customer their was no way to respond without taking a complete loss on the project. The supplier walked away frustrated and realized later how much time was truly wasted in trying to respond blindly to the auction. This supplier politely turned down the next invitation to a reverse auction for this customer, and when the customer called to ask why, they politely told them that if this was the way they intended to do business from now on that they were not interested in being a supplier for them.

The customer lost out on having a consultative resource available to them. The bottom line for the supplier was that if doing business meant doing it at a loss they were not willing to risk losing their company to satisfy a customers need to save money. There is a balance and companies are in business to make money.

What are your thoughts? I am interested in hearing what Printers and Print Buyers think regarding using and completing Reverse Auctions. Post your comments! All will be posted. Thanks!

How Print Sales Reps Really Think

I read this post on another blog and was SHOCKED by the comments made. I cannot believe a Sales Rep would really think this way! I am going to break this down by paragragh to respond and the whole post can be found at: http://www.graphicartsonline.com/blog/1850000385/post/1790014779.html

I received a phone call this morning from a client who had an interesting scenario: "My long time client (worth $50K a year) has started asking suspicious questions regarding pricing. When I press her on it, she admits that they need to save money and printing is one of the areas targeted for savings. What do I do?"

"Suspicious Questions" I certainly hope that EVERY Print Buyer, whether they are full print buyers or occasional print buyers are asking questions about pricing. And in case you haven't figured it out yet with prices on the rise everywhere, good buyers are going to ask questions about pricing, both upfront AND when the invoice comes, that buyer should be reviewing it with a fine tooth comb and questioning anything they do not understand. I also certainly hope that the buyer was "shopping" for print. Buyers, shopping is a VERY good thing in the print industry. Their are sometimes suppliers that are sitting with open capacity on a press and your job might just be the perfect fit in their schedule and they are willing to "shave" the price to fill that press. Companies are learning that when things get tight you don't fire the marketing staff to save costs, you increase the marketing budget to get your name and product out to more people. So you still have to save somewhere. Corporations look at their non-core competencies first. Most corporations are NOT in the business of buying print so they are going to look at where they can save. I worked with a company a few years back that went through this very exercise, they analyzed where they were spending money and where they could get their biggest bang for the buck! Print happened to be it! It was not a core-competency, it was in their eyes an evil necessity of doing business. (it also happened to be 100 million worth of necessity) So they learned to get smart about that business and came up with ways of reducing that cost like volume purchasing, sole provider contracts, process improvement, etc.

This phenomena is all too common these days and there is no question that she is in trouble. After giving her my answer, I pointed out that she is at fault for the client even having that thought! It is up to the sales person to remind the customer on a consistent basis why they do business with them. I don't care how good you are or how great your service level is, if the customer doesn't know (because you haven't told them), it won't be remembered and you are at risk. Get it?

Ah yes! The old customer loyalty gig...My advice (for what it's worth) Hit the problem head on...ask what you can do to help cut costs. The Sales Rep should go back to their boss and say something like; that $50,000 annual business is going to become NO BUSINESS if we cannot find a way to help our customer save money on their jobs. Bottom Line, is $40K better than $0K? If the answer is yes...then help cut the costs for the customer. Also, ask the customer if they need help finding a cost effective printer for the work your company does not do. Be consultative, be sincere, be caring, and really be helpful. Now that is customer service! Be loyal to them first and then you have a right to expect loyalty in return.

If you rush an order, send the client an email that says, “Thank you for letting us deliver on our promise of service” AND CC EVERYONE ON THE PLANET. That way, when a pencil pushing accountant says, “Save money on printing” the Buyer can push back and protect you. However in order to do this, they need to know your value. If you don’t tell them, they will have short memories.

Your right, they do need to know your value and the "Pencil Pushing Accountant" (or better known as CFO) will see NO value in receiving unsolicited AND unwanted emails from a sales person who has just added their email address into their CRM system and is now getting copied on every campaign your company offers. They get VALUE from seeing the books balance and seeing cost savings in areas they think can be leaned down. Your best bet with the accountant is show them savings and show them WHY costs are what they are. CFO's are usually accountants that got A's in economics while in college they will respond better to an economics lesson than shouts of how great we are.

Providing good service and being consultative to a company is more valuable than anything you can provide. Helping the customer to realize savings should be every sales persons first and primary goal. Help that buyer do their job better and it does pay dividends. Customer loyalty is EXTREMELY rare in today's market.

Why professional print buyers are a needed commodity

So I started to read a blog article about how printing is priced, and without even looking at the authors profile I instantly knew within the first paragraph that this was written by a designer. How did I know? The first paragraph immediately pointed out that it should never be about the cost to produce the job but about the quality of the final piece. And budget should be a secondary concern. Statements like these are exactly why a professional print buyer should be quoting and selecting the printers.

The need for balance
Designers are very talented and creative people and can put things in designs that can wow the senses. But they are also very close to the piece and they take great pride and ownership in their designs. So it is important for them to know what will make a piece POP to the end user. However, the cost of the final product is always of great concern and while designers will almost always tell you cost is secondary. The bottom line comes down to; can the piece be produced within the designer's specifications AND on budget? If the answer is No, then alternatives must be sought to still produce the piece and keep it in budget. A professional print buyer can provide an objective eye on the project and help keep the project grounded. I have worked with designers who upon hearing that the piece they want produced is out of budget instantly react with; "increase the budget then because it cannot be done any other way." A print buyer can look at the various aspects of a job and recognize alternatives to the job that will produce a quality piece at the right price. Print buyers provide a needed balance to the order of printed pieces, without them, designer's will pretty much have carte blanc. Printers love the idea of no controls to the price. They can produce the PERFECT print piece, but perfection comes with a cost, and most companies in today's market do not have unlimited print budgets.

Designers should continue to design the most creative pieces they can for their customer. But print buyers should recognize production issues and be able to adjust the specification's of a piece to produce a high quality piece at the best possible price.

DMIA Print Solutions Conference and Expo

The DMIA Print Solutions Expo is just around the corner. This year the Conference and Expo are being held in glamorous Las Vegas on October 17 - 19. At the Las Vegas Convention Center. This is a great opportunity for print distributors and buyers to hear the latest about technologies and processes in the print industry. I was at last years event in Chicago and was just overwhelmed with all of the exhibits and opportunities to hear some great insights. This year I am going to put a little different twist in my attendance, I am planning to blog right from the floor of the exhibition center. You got it live and on the scenes coverage of the conference sessions, and the exhibit hall. I plan to blog about the sights and sounds and the insights from the attendees.

I would like to know; What sessions you think I should attend, what exhibitors should I talk to and discuss in my blog, and what questions should I ask. Here's how you can help? If you click on the questions link you can fill out the form and I will ask the questions of the suppliers or attendees and post responses back here. You can find all of the information including exhibitors and sessions at: www.printsolutionsshow.com. If you are attending the show stop by at booth 1012 and say hi! I love to hear readers thoughts and would love to discuss them with you. I will post more information as we get closer to the show.

I encourage anyone that has the opportunity to take advantage of attending this show. There are always a lot of great suppliers and a great opportunity to learn more about the print and print services industries. It is a great opportunity to go to these shows for me and discuss procurement and sometimes show Cross-Wind. I hope to see you all there!

Contracts for Procurement Systems

I am working on revamped pricing for our estimating and procurement system and was having a discussion about terms. The question of contract terms and the length of the contract came up. There are some that will use a one year agreement as a selling point. However is that really good for the print buyer in the long run? Has our society become so bent on instant gratification that we can see the trees through the forest? Buyers need to be able to evaluate system needs up front before entering into a system without knowing what they are getting. So the up side to a short term agreement is "Well I only have to use this for a year then I can get out and start looking all over again" or as a buyer you will get a sour taste in your mouth and the common statement then is "well all of these systems are the same and this one didn't work for me so none of the others out there will...it's just easier to do this manually anyway." I think what you miss by taking that kind of approach is that you do not see the long term benefit an estimating and procurement system can provide.

Now as a buyer I believe that a long term of 3 years is the optimal length of an agreement because it gives me the ability to gather data and to analyze my spend for at least two years of the term and then gives me an ability to at least start practicing forecasting in the third year of the term. By mid-year of the third year I should have enough data gathered to prove or disprove my forecasts. You see I believe that a system is not just purchased for the ability to improve you effieciency but also to capture and analyze the data from your purchasing to be able to better predict spending cycles. So a system is not just to make your job easier from day to day but it is also to gather information to help you make more informed purchasing decisions. So is it really worth your while as a print buyer to be using a system for a year to "evaluate" whether it is right for you up front? OR, is it better to know exactly what you want from a system and sign a long term agreement to get that information that will help you do a better job down the road?

What are your thoughts? Post your comments.

Have a great weekend!
John

Does the price of Fuel impact Print Production costs?

The national average for the price of gasoline today is $2.81 per gallon. But the price of gasoline has nothing to do with the equation. It is the price of diesel fuel that has an impact on print production costs. The average price per gallon of diesel fuel is $2.92, an $0.11 per gallon difference. And the price is higher today than it was a year ago by $0.067. Now that doesn't seem like much but it is significant because prices are on the rise and winter is coming.

Economics 101
Sorry for the economics lesson but in order to understand the significance let's consider just a couple of factors. Fuel Prices are already high in the mid-west and IF we have a bad winter (meaning lot's of cold and snow) combined with a shortage of refineries and lot's of competition from overseas markets for fuel oil (Asia and Europe) the price of diesel fuel will continue to rise to all time highs. Now throw in just one hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico (that shuts down production and refineries) and we will be toast. Here endth the lesson.

OK so why is diesel higher than gasoline it didn't used to be?
That's very true diesel prices before 2004 were always lower than gas. For this I will give you the Department of Energy's explanation;
Until several years ago, the average price of diesel fuel was usually lower than the average price of gasoline. In some winters when the demand for distillate heating oil was high, the price of diesel fuel rose above the gasoline price. Since September 2004, the price of diesel fuel has been generally higher than the price of regular gasoline all year round for several reasons. Worldwide demand for diesel fuel and other distillate fuel oils has been increasing steadily, with strong demand in China, Europe, and the U.S., putting more pressure on the tight global refining capacity. In the U.S., the transition to low-sulfur diesel fuel has affected diesel fuel production and distribution costs. Also, the Federal excise tax on diesel fuel is 6 cents higher per gallon (24.4 cents per gallon) than the tax on gasoline.

Alright so let's put it all together...
The cost of fuel is high, it is going to remain high, and if foreign competition is will to pay more per barrel for oil, then we are going to lose out.

So what if I buy my print in Asia?
Cost of fuel is still high, but labor and living conditions are low so it balances out you can only work a human for low pay for so long...ever here of sweat shops? I don't think it is a win to print in Asia, and with all of the substandard products coming out of that part of the world are you really willing to sacrifice cost for potential hazardous chemicals?

What can I do?
The best thing to do in today's market is to look at suppliers that can produce your job close to the destination thereby reducing freight costs. If the job is shipping to two locations seriously look for split production not split shipping. The cost of production may be higher BUT you may save overall, by reduced freight. Print Buyers should seriously evaluate freight cost first when determining production then look at the total cost for the job not just production price not just freight but the total. In today's market it is extremely important to consider freight. I have stated in an earlier post that I had a customer that routinely evaluated freight and made production decisions based on that. Now if you are using a procurement system it should have the ability to break freight out as a separate line item in pricing and to go one step further it should also be able to sub-total your production costs and your freight costs. If your procurement system doesn't allow for freight as a line item then get a new system! I am betting the cost savings in freight alone will pay for a GOOD procurement system. If your suppliers are not breaking freight out then ask them too. Don't let them give you excuses either because if they think they might lose the job because of their freight price they will hesitate to provide it. Also, now is the time to be supplier shopping. Look at your shipping destinations closely and then start looking for suppliers that are in those areas that can provide the same services that Charlie down the street is providing, just at $250.00 per shipment more. A little trick that the big boys have learned is...When a large print supplier is involved and you know the companies I am talking about, they have figured out that, if you have a job that is shipping to Cleveland and your quoting with the plant in Dallas they will get the quote from the Dayton plant and then estimate freight from Dallas for the quote. Then when you order they will produce in Dayton and charge you for shipping from Dallas. So another question I would be asking your suppliers in the quote is; where is the producing facility located? If you ask that question and get a response of; "Why is that important? OR it doesn't matter! OR my favorite...we haven't determined that yet. (Yeah right) They knew EXACTLY where they were going to produce this the minute that quote came in the door!! With the press operating systems that these major printers have they know when the pressman is on coffee break and when he will return to the press halfway across the world.

Summary
There are lot's of options available to help you cut freight costs and you need to be taking advantage of each and every available option. I also encourage you to share those little tips and tricks with your peers. If you have an idea as to haw to save money or save on freight costs post a comment to my blog. I will share all ideas with the rest of the readers. If you want to know more about diesel fuel costs go to the DOE website located here.

Print Supplier Loyalty - Is it that important?

When I was a buyer the most common theme I heard from my suppliers and my potential suppliers was always about customer loyalty. Suppliers actually measure customer loyalty as an indicator in their business models. But how important is customer loyalty really? From a buyers perspective, suppliers are coming in the office constantly trying to find a way to get their foot in the door. They often times will try just about anything to get just one sale from a new customer.
As sales people, they are being measured on not just the usual volume of sales but also on the number of new customers that are brought in the door. It's called building a book of business and sales people will carry that book of business with them when they go to work for the competition. That is often times why another company hires or recruits sales people from other companies because they are often counting on that book of business. Sales people are always looking for the next opportunity too, so they can increase their salary or commission rate. So when that sales person walks in the door they are trying to build a relationship with you. They would like to be that friend for as long as you are with that company because they are counting on one of two things happening; A) They leave XYZ printers and go to ABC printer, they are counting on the fact that the relationship they have built with you over the years is going to get them a notch on their sales belt under the NEW sales column. B) When you leave ABC marketing company and go to work at XYZ marketing they are hoping that...You guessed it...the relationship they have built with you over the years is going to get them a notch on their sales belt under the NEW sales column.

So I ask...who is the loyalty really with? Often times it is not with the company unless it is niche printing and there are not many companies who can do that work. By the way we are talking about small to medium companies that are the sales reps perfect target. Why? Because they are the ones that are doing business based on relationships. They are single or two and three buyer organizations that do 1 to 2 million in print annually and print is not a core function but an ancillary function.

Keep in mind that I am not talking about the large buying companies because most of the time those relationships are based on analytics there is a director of print that is usually being held to statistical analysis of their print spend and they are always negotiating based on their volumes of print.

So is it about loyalty? To a certain degree it is about loyalty but not to who you think it might be. It is certainly not as much about the printing company as it is about the sales person. So next time that sales person walks in your door and starts talking about loyalty consider who your loyalty is with.

Working on a project with a team in Cross-Wind®

Sometimes projects are big enough that it requires two or more of your teams buyers to work up the specifications. So how do you keep all of the information in one project for tracking and reporting purposes and share that project workload among the rest of the team? In Cross-Wind you can share the project with other team members. Those team members can receive the RFQ response emails as well as the Owner of the project. Ownership of the project can also be reassigned from the Owner list so that a project can be transfered from one Print Buyer to another within the group. To reassign project ownership:
1. From the Project List, locate the project for which you will edit ownership or share with other co-workers.

2. Click the Buyer name listed in the Current Owner column. A pop-up window appears with all
Buyers in the existing group.

3. Attach the Buyer to the project by clicking the check box next to the Buyers name. If you want to transfer ownership of the project, click the radio button next to the Buyer who will become the new project owner. If you reassign ownership of a project, the new owner must also be attached to the project.

4. Click Save. A message appears indicating that your selection was saved.

5. Click Close to return to the project list.

Attaching a Buyer to a project allows the attached Buyer to view and edit the project.
1. From the Project List, locate the project for which you will edit attachment.

2. Click the Buyer name listed in the Current Owner column. A pop-up window appears with all
Buyers in the existing group.

3. Click the check box next to the Buyer who will be attached to the project.

4. Click Save. The project will now appear in the project list of all Buyers who are attached to the
project.

Print Oasis 2008 Exhibitor Opportunities Now Available

Print Oasis 2008 Print Buyers Conference & Exhibit will be held February 9-12, 2008 at the Amelia Island Plantation in Amelia Island, Florida near Jacksonville.

ARLINGTON, VA, September 5, 2007 — Print Buyers Online.com, a free, educational e-community for print buyers, print communications professionals and their suppliers in partnership with Print Communications Professionals International (PCPI), the premier association dedicated to print buyers, will host their annual Print Oasis Print Buyers Conference & Exhibit (www.printoasis.com) on February 9-12, 2008 at the Amelia Island Plantation in Amelia Island, Florida near Jacksonville.

The Print Oasis 2008 Print Buyers Conference & Exhibit is the premier independent conference focused on the needs and challenges of print buyers, specifiers and production professionals. Previous exhibitors have included printers, proofing companies, major technology firms and paper manufacturers.

Extended Exhibit Times
Print Oasis 2008 exhibit times will be extended from Sunday afternoon and evening to all day Monday, concluding with the Paper Show on Monday night. Back by popular demand, compelling mini-educational sessions will be conducted in the Exhibit Hall providing attendees with a fun way to quickly learn the tricks of the trade while promoting traffic on the exhibitor floor.

“We are thrilled to bring our annual conference to the exotic ocean-front destination of Amelia Island Plantation Resort. We are confident that conference attendees and exhibitors will enjoy this exciting locale,” said Suzanne Morgan. The Amelia Island Plantation is Florida's premier AAA-Four Diamond destination island resort. The 1,350 acre property overlooks the blue water of the Atlantic on the east and the green marshland and Intracoastal Waterway on the west. This resort is family friendly and offers many exciting amenities including four championship golf courses, tennis courts, 25 swimming pools, bicycling, fishing, beach rentals, chartered fishing boats, award-winning Youth Programs, nature tours and programs, Health & Fitness Center, aquatic sports, boat tours and The Spa & Shops. Amelia Island Plantation offers beautiful hospitality suites with ocean-views. From fine dining to casual elegance, Amelia’s restaurants offer the finest foods in a variety of atmospheres.

Exhibitors are encouraged to stay for the full conference, as the program allows plenty of opportunities to spend quality time with prospective clients. Exhibitors are invited to develop meaningful relationships by hosting a golf outing, a boat tour, a scavenger hunt, a beach bon-fire or pool party. They can also demonstrate their expertise by presenting a mini-educational seminar in the Exhibit Hall.

Exhibitor Fees
Early-bird exhibit fees start at $3,000 for a standard 10’ x 10’ booth (ending October 31, 2007) or $3,500 thereafter. Table-top exhibits for the popular Monday night Paper show, available to manufacturers and distributors of paper products only, will be $750 for early-bird registration (ending October 31, 2007) or $850 thereafter.

Print Buyers Online.com is also offering its exhibitors the opportunity for year-round promotion by combining online sponsorship of its over 12,000 member e-community or its "Think Fresh" educational web content package with a Print Oasis exhibit. Savvy print suppliers can drive more traffic and repeat visits to their websites by using this innovative web interface tool to educate buyers. Print Buyers Online.com also provides its online sponsors with tremendous exposure and a proven lead generation program. Details are available in the Print Oasis 2008 Exhibitors Prospectus.

Print Oasis 2007 exhibitor, Dan Freedland, V.P. Business Development of Primary Color, Inc. shared his experience at last year’s conference, “Print Oasis is an excellent venue for those wishing to interface with a significant community of qualified print professionals in a condensed time period.”

Booth location and event sponsorship opportunities are all determined on a first-come, first serve basis. Interested exhibitors are encouraged to contact Kimberlee Sautter, Conference Manager, today to guarantee the best spot at (703) 534-9305 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST or via email to ksautter@e-pbo.com. For more information about the conference, please visit www.printoasis.com.

With more than 12,000 members, who purchase over $14.1 billion in printing each year, Print Buyers Online.com is the premiere place for education and information for print buyers. A free, educational e-community, PBO provides tips, articles, Q&As, tools and resources to help print buyers learn new and existing technologies and best practices for the business of working with print suppliers. In addition to providing valuable information, Print Buyers Online.com conducts research to understand the needs and challenges of the print buying community. For a free membership to Print Buyers Online.com, please visit the PBO website.

Print Communications Professionals International (PCPI) - Created by Print Buyers Online.com, PCPI expands the services of PBO by offering robust education, resources and networking opportunities to help professionals who purchase print media provide greater value to their organizations. PCPI encourages best practices to enhance the buying and selling experience and promotes the exchange of information in a non-sales environment. The association also offers advanced certification for print communications professionals. For additional information about PCPI membership, please visit the organization's website.

Editing Supplier Information in Cross-Wind

I got a call tonight from a supplier and I thought this is probably a good time to address this issue. While it is not the most Frequently Asked Question it is up on the list of questions that I get from print suppliers so I will try to explain the edit features for suppliers here.

When a supplier logs into Cross-Wind, they can access their company information by clicking on the "Administration" section in the top navigation bar.

In the Administration section you can edit your company information in the default page. You can edit ALL of the information here and then click the Save button. If you would like to edit the USER information, click on "User Info" in the secondary navigation bar. You can change all of the information in the User Info section and click Save to update the information. This information is used in the RFQ page for contact information for the print buyer and in the supplier address book of the "Resources" section also for the print buyer.

It is a good idea for the print supplier to keep this information up to date for the print buyer so they know who and how to contact your company. This whole process should only take you about 5 minutes. If you have further questions please let me know.

Submitting Print Samples to your Printer

Everybody hates chicken scratch! So why torture your printers with it? Sometimes samples are a necessity when specifying print jobs but take the time to mark up your samples cleanly. The cleaner your samples are the easier it will be for your suppliers to review and provide accurate quotes. I suggest digitizing your samples if at all possible. The price of a cheap scanner is less than the price of a mistake in production because of miscommunication on the sample. If stock or matching ink color is the issue then obviously you need to send a sample but if your concern is the attributes then digitize that sucker and send it out via email, ftp, disk or whatever! Below are examples of a poor sample and a good sample. Put your chicken scratch on a separate sheet of paper and reference the attributes by number or letter. It makes life a lot easier for your printer and for you when referencing. Now obviously there are more sophisticated ways of doing this but if this is all you got then at least make it organized!

Ink Prices on the Rise

Today the Flint Group North America announced an increase in Ink prices. Flint cited the continuing and unprecedented rise in raw materials, transportation and energy costs as the reason for the increase.
The following inks are affected:
Publication Gravure - 10%
Publication Heatset - 8%
News Ink - 6%
Sheetfed - 5% to 7% depending on product technology and color.
Packaging – up to 12% depending on product technology and color.

Sheetfed buyers...expect these costs to be passed on to you. The increases are set to become effective October 1, 2007.

Flint Group is citing that "the increased global consumption of petroleum and petroleum derivatives, along with limited refinery capacity, continue to be the key drivers in the cost of raw materials" according to Bill Miller, President Flint Group North America.

Link to Press release: http://www.flintgrp.com/FlintGroupPressRelease.nsf/PressRelease/C9544A35B6F7ACA3852573440070F815?OpenDocument

Will XPS replace the PDF?

XPS stands for "XML Paper Specification." XPS is available in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 07 which is available for Windows XP. XPS architecture is built specifically for the Windows Vista environment but there is a free download available from microsoft called: "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package" If you are running Office 07 on a Windows XP machine you will want this download to use XPS. You can get the XPS viewer here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx

XPS is designed for use three ways;
As a spool file format the format which documents are submitted to the printer drivers for conversion to PDL.

As a printer command language. Newer printer are being released that support XPS just like PCL or PostScript(r) Language

As a document sharing format; allowing a static, electronic representation of the document to be shared for viewing, collaborative development, proofing, or remote printing.

Advantages and Disadvantages
There are not a whole lot of advantages of XPS as yet as it is new. There are not any disadvantages to it over PDF either. I can say that of course PDF has had ten years of maturity over XPS and is a widely accepted format for both printers and the legal profession. However, if adobe attempts to go down another road like the FedEX/Kinko's fiasco...I would say XPS will at least have the advantage. (and don't think this is the last attempt Adobe will make at this kind of venture) I would guess they are plotting right now as to how they can pull this sort of thing off again. I think at this point PDF has a pretty firm hold on the market. But, don't hold your breath! I think there are some pretty cool things in XPS and based on what I read by Global Graphics I think there may be some cool things to come!

For Printing Companies:
I would start asking your IT departments to look at XPS format and what it will take to start accepting XPS files from your customers. It is coming and I think you should get ahead of this one.

Information regarding XPS: http://www.globalgraphics.com/xps/more.html
XPS downloads: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
XPS Viewer: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx



Sources: American Printer July 07
www.globalgraphics.com
www.microsoft.com

Printers Tag-line

“expert solutions to the publishing world”

"To many of our customers we are more than a print vendor, we are an extension of their print purchasing departments because of our consultative approach to selling and customer service. We don’t just take orders, we help our customers by looking for ways to save them time and money, we remind them when they should be ordering so they don’t miss their mail dates and we help educate them on the most efficient ways to print their materials."


This printer is looking for a new tag-line to describe themselves their tag-line is this...“expert solutions to the publishing world”. Now here is my dilemma in all of this. How many of your printers describe themselves as above? Probably ALL of them "we're more that just a print vendor.....Yada, Yada, Yada!! How many print buyers have heard this? Almost every company in the U.S. says something like this "[puking], [puking]. Print Buyers, just once wouldn't it be refreshing to have a sales rep come into your office and say something like this: "We print [insert item here] and [insert other item here] we try to do our best to deliver your products on schedule and on budget. Sometimes we don't! and when we don't we will try to make it up to you the best way we can. We are humans and sometimes humans mess up! We will try to help you with anything we can but we don't do everything!" I am not saying this printer doesn't deliver what they say...I am saying actions speak louder than words! You shouldn't have to advertise your abilities you should be able to show your abilities. If your that good word will spread Print Buyers are a small but close knit community they know which printers are good and which aren't and if your that good print buyers are not afraid to make recommendations for you.

[rant]I had a supplier that I worked with in the medical field and they would come into my office and instead of trying to give me a bunch of fluff they would say "this is what we can offer you it's the best I can do. If you can find it cheaper somewhere else then buy it from them!" Sometimes they would even come in my office and say; "Here's the price of [product] but I know you can get it from [XYZ Vendor] for cheaper here's the sales reps number give him a call and he will help you out" [end rant]

Now guess who got my business 95% of the time? You got it they did! Why? Because there was no bull about how we are going to help you they actually HELPED me!! It wasn't in a tag-line or mission statement. It was what THEY did for the customer they were trained to provide WOW service to their customers. They were also the ONLY vendor that could come to my office without an appointment. They would just show up and most times they would walk out of my office without a sale in their pocket but if I needed something fast or I needed anything they were the one I called first and always. Bottom line: Cut the crap and treat your customers like they are your friend, neighbor, brother, or sister.

So this company needs a new tag-line how about this; "We will do the best job we can."

This post is dedicated to Zane and Brianna hope things are going well for you!


Excerpt from http://printceoblog.com/2007/08/printing-company-tagline

Selecting Printers - Distance is not Dead

I read an article today by Jim Van Natter saying that "You can find exactly the right printer with the right combination of equipment and services at the right price anywhere in the world. And because the Internet allows instant communication, you can transfer files, view and approve PDF proofs, and place orders without having to actually go to “your printer’s shop.”"*

Now no doubt, the age of the Internet and portable document files and vendor management tools has made it easier to quote and purchase from a wider variety of print suppliers, and making it faster and easier to quote and purchase. However, the cost of freight and the cost of moving that product is still a great concern. If nothing else it makes it easier to have your print buyers located in one office or part of the country and allow them to make print purchasing decisions for another office halfway around the world. So making the statement "Distance is Dead" is not true. With the price of fuel and shipping on the rise print buyers should be focusing on the freight charges from the print supplier to their destinations. Instead of splitting shipping as buyers have done in the past consider splitting production. Can you get smaller amounts of print done by two suppliers for the same amount you could get the whole job done at one supplier. This is where digital print can play a key role. I suggest making freight a primary consideration when looking at how you can cut costs. Do you ask your printer for freight costs? and do you ask them to break out based on split shipments? If you do wonderful! If not start! Looking for an area to cut costs? This is it!

One of my customers came to me several years ago asking that they be able to move the freight charge to the top of their comparison sheet. I was a little confused until they explained that the first thing they consider in purchasing print is the freight charge. Often times they would go with a higher production cost, as long as their freight charges were cheaper. They would then compare that with a contract rate and go with the cheaper shipper. They could then specify to their supplier whether the supplier would pay for shipping or, they would issue a shipping number to them and pay for the shipping themselves. Putting extra attention on the shipping charges actually saved them money in the long run. Much more than it cost to do the extra work. So I conclude that Distance is NOT dead it has shifted from one end of the process to the other.

*Excerpt from Graphic Arts Monthly Blogs - How do prospects choose printers (part-2) By Jim Van Natter