Wincanton Print, UK
From SecureOffice
"SecureOffice is saving us two hours a day previously spent picking up artwork and dropping off proofs"
Introduction
Established in 1980, Wincanton Print Company Limited is a leading UK colour lithographic printer employing 50 staff. Based in the South West, they have a nationwide customer base which includes Royal Bank of Scotland Offshore, Isle of Man Bank, Natwest Bank Offshore, Brittany Ferries, Wella UK and Hilton Hotel Group.
The Problem
Operating in a highly competitive market, Wincanton Print is always looking for ways to improve its productivity and turnaround to customers while reducing costs. Steve Clark, Studio Manager explains, "To meet customer expectations of even faster turnarounds, we we were looking for a solution which would allow us to receive digital artwork files and send PDF proofs quickly and easily. Waiting for a courier to deliver CDs of artwork and posting proofs back was cutting into our print time and costing our customers time and money. While we use ISDN, it's fair to say it is almost a dead technology which costs a fortune. No one bothers to install it these days. Our fourchannel ISDN system was costing us £350 per quarter for line rental alone. We tried FTP but found it to be just too complicated for most customers. One customer uses Creo Tokens but in our experience these can be very slow, especially if Creo's relay service is used. With email, gone are the days when ISPs gave you a 25 or 50MB message limit. These days 10MB seems to be the norm, which is too small for artwork or even larger proofs."
The Solution
Steve Clark heard about SecureOffice through a customer and decided to trial the service. SecureOffice quickly proved itself as a quick and easy to use way to share artwork and proofs with customers. Steve comments, "We are now using SecureOffice regularly with 15 or so of our more important customers. It means we can receive artwork and send back proofs the same day. In fact it's saving us two hours a day previously spent picking up artwork and dropping off proofs, as well as courier charges. Our quarterly ISDN line charges have dropped from £280 to virtually nothing … just £2.15 for the last quarter! The feedback from customers (even the less technical) has been good, with most finding SecureOffice very easy to use. If you can use a web browser, you can use SecureOffice."
The Future
Wincanton Print is keen to bring the benefits of SecureOffice to the rest of its customers as soon as possible. Steve adds, "We've recently contacted all our customers to let them know about the benefits of using SecureOffice. We're also going to halve our ISDN line rental costs by going down to two lines. In time we may get rid of ISDN altogether. "
Summary of projected savings
• £700 per year in ISDN line rental
• £1,100 per year in ISDN call charges
• 500 man-hours per year saved in picking up artwork and dropping off proofs
• Fuel and vehicle costs saved for pick ups and deliveries
• Couriers/postage for Wincanton Print and their customers
