Living Life in the Cloud

I just read a post called; "Uninstall Now" from what I believe might be a very brave person for even attempting this experiment if you will and I hope he succeeds. I feel that software as we know it is on a cusp and that our computing devices are merely a URL storage device and a browser to allow us to access our tools from anywhere without being tied to software versions and installing upgrades. I have believed for the last 8 years that this was possible and I may even try to join David Rae in this adventure! Good Luck David!
As a side note: NowSource has always been an SaaS model. Design and architecture have fully been based on web accessibility so that users do not worry about updates and versions, they have access to the latest version everyday and with out worry or hassle.

e-Sourcing Tools

This is a great article and basically what I have been saying for years...e-Sourcing Tools — Means to an End by Andy Sealock. The first three paragraphs sum it all up in my mind. e-sourcing tools can have all the functionality in the world but if your processes do not back it up, they might as well be shelfware. I believe this is where NowSource has distinguished itself, as we do not just provide you with a "sourcing application" we review your processes with you and assist in providing the functionality to fit YOUR process. Not too make the process fit the tool. I believe this to be the fundamental difference in our tool vs. other tools on the market.

Day 2 On-Demand Exihibtion

Show floor is picking up right away this morning. Yesterday I met with a purchasing manager of a cooperative buying group that has just recently been organized. So do you think cooperative purchasing is a viable option in the print industry? Co-ops, have waxed and waned over the years but overall cooperative purchasing is a powerful tool to help organizations see real value for their purchasing dollar. Systems like Cross-Wind/NowSource are a means by which product specifications and management of the producers can be controlled by the co-op and still provide easy access for the customer to submit their orders. So again, do you think a co-op environment would work for purchasing print?

Day 1 Wrap-up from On-Demand

Day 1 was a pretty busy day! I did not get a chance to peruse the other exhibitors because we were steady all day in our booth. Show officials stated that the registrations and attendance was on par with last year so it is good to see that attendees and exhibitors were out in full force on day one! If your at the show stop by booth 2411 and say hi! Check back tomorrow as I will have more news regarding Cross-Wind.
John

On-Demand Day #1

Well I survived show set-up...(I actually did not do a whole lot to help) Having my first morning coffee and getting ready to head over to the show floor. Before I do I thought I would share the latest company news.

UPS Stores/MailBoxes Etc. Will utilize the NowPrint Platform for Online Digital Print stores.
Read more here: http://www.graphicartsonline.com/article/CA6646833.html?rssid=258

Going Green in Procurement

I read an interesting article by Tom Jowitt at TechWorld titled Companies fail to go green on procurement. The sad part is that according to his article only 3 percent of companies in the UK are using a non-paper based procurement system. Which leads me to wonder what the statistics might look like in the U.S.? Unfortunately I did not find a lot of data in this area which leads me to believe that if only 3% in the UK that the numbers in the U.S. are probably not much higher. What interested me even more was the statistics related to Printers, Faxes, and other equipment required to produce a paper copy that ultimately produces Carbon Output. not to mention the money saved in electricty alone.

Fuel prices impacting print spend?

Appended:
I apparently wrote this before the DOE announced the National average of $3.39 per gallon yesterday afternoon so the news gets better and better! The message is still the same just even more urgent than last week.

According to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, Fuel prices are up 32% over this time last year. From an April 2007 average price of $2.36 per gallon to $3.11 per gallon this week. Diesel Prices currently average $3.95 per gallon up 111 cents since this time last year. Cost of shipping is definitely on the rise, paper is heavy and costly to ship, both to the printer and to the consumer. At the same time personal income has only rose 0.9% in the same period. Companies are taking a hard look at how to cut costs and anything involving freight charges will be scrutinized heavily.

Now is the time to be evaluating print production costs and focus heavily on freight charges.
What is freight costing?
Can I get a better freight cost at the expense of production costs?
Am I better served producing a job closer to the delivery destination?

If you don't have strategic suppliers providing you with cost effective print; YOU ARE LOSING MONEY. No question about it at this point. I would also heavily consider which jobs can be split to make production closer to destination so if you are split shipping consider split production. Ask your suppliers where they are producing if they have multiple facilities and challenge them if they are producing in a plant further from the destination than another plant. Now is not the time to let your suppliers dictate. I believe that the breaking point is very close. The word "Recession" is getting used daily on the news. I heard from a colleague today that his company is now on a hiring freeze. Companies are looking for cost effective ways to measure and source print spend consider looking at sourcing solutions that can help you evaluate based on these and other criteria.

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

Staples Makes Bid to Acquire Corporate Express

In an email to Staples associates dated 2/19/08, Ron Sargent Chairman and CEO of Staples, notified associates of the proposed offer made to Corporate Express. Below is the text of the email distributed yesterday.

"Fellow Associates:

Today we have taken a significant step in creating a bigger and better platform for all Staples associates to deliver great service and value to our customers around the world. We are pleased to announce that Staples has made a proposal this morning to acquire Corporate Express, one of the world's leading suppliers of office products.

This acquisition will not only significantly expand Staples' North American Delivery operations, the fastest growing and most profitable part of our business, but will also add successful Contract businesses in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to our portfolio. In addition to expanding our business into new geographies and customer segments, the acquisition will complement our organic growth, representing the addition of approximately $8 billion in annual sales to Staples' $20 billion business.

Corporate Express has a strong management team leading 18,000 associates in 20 countries, and we believe our combined business and people can be even more successful in building a strong, global delivery business. While Corporate Express has not been receptive to our approaches to discuss a possible business combination, we decided to pursue the proposed acquisition because of the tremendous benefits to both Corporate Express’ and Staples' stakeholders, given the complementary nature of our business and the significant opportunities the combination represents. We hope to meet with Corporate Express’ management and complete an acquisition agreement as soon as possible.

We look forward to officially welcoming Corporate Express to the Staples family in the coming weeks and working together to ensure a smooth transition for all associates, customers and suppliers."

The office products market seems to be heating up a bit. The proposed offer is for 7.25 euros per common share of stock. Staples is touting this as a 60% premium from current market value.

Will stock holders snub this offer like Yahoo investors snubbed the Microsoft offer a couple of weeks ago? Let's wait and see!

Read the official Press Release here: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=96244&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1109564&highlight=

John

A Quick Note From Print Oasis 2008

Good Morning from Amelia Island FL.
The weather has been incredible these past few days...Sunshine, Warmth, the Ocean Breeze! The conference is busy and active as usual with great speakers and LOT's of Exhibitor's.
There are more exhibitor's at this years show than at least the last 4 years reaching more and more Print Buyers. It is 8:30 in the morning and the lecture I am sitting in is full of attendee's. My rough count is 250. The show floor is busy and filled with Print Buyers looking for everything form the latest in promotional items to variable data printing formats and technologies. There are Printers, Office Supply companies to Software Solutions providers exhibiting at the show. Tonight is the Paper show where some of the leading paper companies will be displaying their goods and materials for all to consider.
I am currently sitting in on Steven Lance and Paul Kurnit as they discuss branding 2.0 The session is focused on advertising and the print industry. The show is full of great information for all print buyers across any industry. Steven and Paul will be doing a book signing later today on the exhibit floor. Well time to get back to the show! Wishing you were here!

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

Busy, Busy, Busy, Are you busy too?

Good Morning!
Or is it afternoon I am not sure! It has been a very busy start to 2008 for me. I hope your 2008 is starting out with a bang as well. I was at the Corporate Express National Sales Meeting last week. What a great show! The Keynote speaker was Astronaut Jim Lovell who talked about his experiences on Apollo 13. A very inspiring talk. I got the opportunity to visit with almost all of the Strategic Suppliers for Corporate Express and talk with them about their experiences with Cross-Wind and how it is working for them. Almost all of them were very pleased with how it works and expressed that it helps improve their processes when quoting to their customer. In addition, the Strategic Sourcing supplier manager did a supplier survey in early December asking for the suppliers input and the preliminary analysis is showing that an overwhelming majority of Suppliers are please with the tools. I hope to have the raw data soon and to share that analysis here as well. While the weather wasn't the greatest (Cloudy and rainy Wednesday through Saturday) it sure beat the Minnesota weather I came home too (-10 degrees) on Saturday.
Next week I am off to New Jersey for another customer implementation of Cross-Wind and hopefully I will be able to announce very soon the customers name. I am out of the office all next week but will have some time to start keeping up on this blog! As always if you have questions please feel free to send me a note.
John

New Customer Implementation

I am doing a new customer implementation in December so I thought I would touch on some of the things that are involved with implementation of Cross-Wind. One of the very first questions I get asked is;
"How long is this going to take?" knowing that everyone's time is extremely valuable a standard implementation of Cross-Wind takes only 5 days (Technically 4 and a half but who's counting?)
"Is there work I need to do before the implementation?" Yes, typically we send a spreadsheet prior to implementation asking for user information to upload to the customers site prior to implementation. This information is typically Buyers, Suppliers, and Customers that will be accessing the system. If the customer already has this information contained in a database or spreadsheet we will clean the information for them and help to fill-in the blanks. One of the other things we ask customers to consider is what products do they associate to which suppliers. This helps us in the building of there custom product templates to know which templates are associated to which suppliers. We also ask our customers to supply us with copies of any forms that they are currently using to spec print so we can develop the product templates to meet their current processes.
"What is the agenda for implementation week?" I won't get into specific detail here but typical implementation consists of understanding the customers current buying process. If the customer has there process clearly defined then this goes very fast. I have spent time in advance of an implementation sitting with the customers buyers to watch how they quote print and to produce a map of the process. This helps in understanding which pieces of Cross-Wind will be needed in the development of the customers application. During implementation week we cover the basic set-up of the site and administration, how to add modules, users, templates, modify existing templates, supplier associations, buyer training, and supplier training.
"How long will it take to do the training?" Buyer training will usually take 4 to 8 hours depending on how quickly and how knowledgeable the buyers are of their processes. Supplier training typically lasts 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Supplier access to the system is very straightforward and easy to use so the suppliers can usually start processing quotes with only an hour of training. The buyer side of the system is more complex because of all of the capabilities the buyer has to specify and request print.
I typically try to schedule implementation to start on Monday morning and will try to get out of the customers office by Friday noon. The customer then has access to myself and our client services staff at no additional charge to ask any questions or walk through any issues they may have. The Call period usually only lasts about two weeks after implementation and the customer is usually very comfortable with using Cross-Wind after that. We also provide user guides and online help to our customers and their suppliers.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have questions please contact me.

CEO Confidence Declines Further

Oct. 5, 2007 -- The Conference Board Measure of CEO Confidence, which had declined to 45 in the second quarter of 2007, edged down to 44 in the third quarter. A reading of more than 50 points reflects more positive than negative responses. The survey includes about 100 business leaders in a wide range of industries.

"Despite the rather bleak assessment of current conditions, CEOs are not as pessimistic in their short-term outlook," says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. "But although the outlook is somewhat brighter than last quarter, the pace of growth is likely to remain moderate in the months ahead."

CEOs' assessment of current economic conditions was less favorable, with 14 percent claiming economic conditions had improved, down from 23 percent last quarter. In assessing their own industries, business leaders were also less optimistic. Approximately 17 percent claim conditions are better, down from approximately 23 percent in the first quarter.

CEOs, however, are moderately more optimistic about the short-term outlook than last quarter. Now, approximately 20 percent of business leaders expect economic conditions to improve in the next six months, up from 17 percent last quarter. Expectations for their own industries are also more upbeat, with 27 percent anticipating an improvement, up from 17 percent last quarter.

Capital Spending Plans Decline

Some 24 percent of business executives report increases in their companies' capital spending plans since January of this year, while 13 percent have scaled plans back, based on a supplementary question asked each year in the third quarter. This is a moderate change from the 2006 survey, when 28 percent of respondents had increased their capital spending plans and 9 percent had made cuts. Among the reasons given for increasing capital investment plans, the most common was an increase in sales volume. A decline in sales volume was the most cited reason for a decrease in spending plans.

Related Tables are attached. (You will need Adobe Acrobat to view)

Source: CEO Confidence 3rd Quarter 2007
The Conference Board

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!

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!

Cross-Wind® Project List Management

Making projects inactive in the project list.

Ever have problems or delays logging in to Cross-Wind? If you do then take a look at your project list. The first thing that can improve system responsiveness is to make those projects that are no longer being worked on inactive. The way to do this is to un-check the box to the right of the projects that you would like to make inactive. Once you have deselected the projects then scroll to the bottom of the list and click on the "Save" button. The page will refresh and the jobs deselected will be placed in the inactive list. If you need to retrieve an inactive job simply select "Inactive" in the search pane and click the "Search" button. Your list will now display all of the inactive jobs in your system.
Questions please feel free to comment or contact me.

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

Cross-Wind® Supplier Training Session

The monthly print supplier training session is scheduled for Thursday September 13, 2007 at 2:30 PM Central Time. This is the regular monthly webinar through LiveMeeting. This session is for Cross-Wind print suppliers to learn new tips and tricks when submitting an RFQ response to your Cross-Wind customers. Qualified suppliers will be receiving their monthly email notification this afternoon containing the link to the LiveMeeting session. If you are a Cross-Wind print supplier and do not receive your email notification check you spam filter or box to make sure the email is there. If it is be sure to white list the sender email address so you will receive these regularly. If you did not receive your email contact me though the email link on this blog and I will be happy to forward the information on to you.

The rest of the years supplier training schedule looks like this:
October - Thursday Oct. 11, 2007 - 2:30 PM Central Time
November - Thursday Nov. 8, 2007 - 2:30 PM Central Time
December - Thursday Dec. 13, 2007 - 2:30 PM Central Time

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.