PlanWell Collaborate is Offically Released

Today PlanWell Collaborate is officially released. If you have not yet heard about PlanWell Collaborate (PWC) you will very soon! After many months of research and development ARC has released PlanWell Collaborate; a game changing application for the AEC marketplace.

PlanWell Collaborate is a cost-effective and easy-to-use Web 2.0-based application that accelerates project team coordination and improves file sharing; PlanWell Collaborate replaces inefficient project management tools like FTP, email or spreadsheets. With PlanWell Collaborate, project teams can easily share documents, increase team accountability, and reduce delays without the complexity and steep learning curve associated with traditional project management software.

PlanWell Collaborate can be used independently or inside Microsoft Outlook(R) to create a working environment that is easy-to-use, familiar and immediately accessible. Project communication and document sharing happens in real time inside a central project portal, so projects start fast and stay on track with current information. With no software to install and a cost-effective software-as-a-service pricing model, users can be added or removed from the project as their participation is required.

Because PWC is completely a cloud based solution it has significant appeal to any business entity that is project centric.

PlanWell Collaborate will be sold and supported by a select number of PWC certified reprographers who understand how design and construction project teams use documents to communicate and collaborate.

PlanWell Collaborate is available as software-as-a-service (Saas) for individuals, project teams and business enterprises of all sizes. Standard pricing is set at $25/seat per month.

For more information or a 30-day free trial, visit http://www.planwellcollaborate.com/, or call your PEiR Group representative at (925) 658-0200.

Staying On Top of Copyright Rules

“Can you copy these four pages out of this book for me?  ”More importantly, does everyone at your front desk know the right answer?

U.S. copyright law is remarkably strict!

Making a single copy of a copyrighted work without authorization of the copyright owner can get you in trouble, even if you believed that the work wasn’t protected or thought that you had permission of the copyright owner.

Penalties can be severe and can include lost profits, damage claims up to $150,000, attorney’s fees, and more.

Knowing what you can do and what you can’t with copyrighted material is a serious legal issue, and anyone in your business who comes into contact with customers should know the basics.

Luckily, it’s easy to educate them.

The PEiR Group has posted training material on copyright issues on the PEiR Group's intranet. To find these documents visit the members resources area under best practices library:  sales/tech/prod/ .

In the materials, you’ll find information on how to protect yourselves from liability issues, what circumstances require a written release from liability, as well as useful documents to have within reach when customers come to the counter with a magazine, book or photo in hand.

Please join your PEiR’s at the SGIA Expo in Las Vegas October 13-15

This is a reminder to all PEiR Group Members that we will be hosting a Color Graphics Sales and Technology Conference in conjunction with the SGIA Expo on October 13 and 14 in Las Vegas.

"As wide-format digital printing continues to emerge, new markets and applications are being developed continually and new uses for the technology are being discovered. There is a lot to be said for adopting a technology during its emergence phase. Being early to the right markets can generate new business, and the margins are better when emerging technologies are needed." (source: American Printer)

According to a SGIA “Trends Survey” report (figure 1) several wide format imaging market segments are predicting growth, these include: government agencies, health care services, corporate branding and retail.

If you are not prepared to address these market segments with your wide format color graphics services or you want to learn how to expand your wide format color business then you will want to attend the PEiR Group Color Graphics Sales and Technology Conference along with visiting the SGIA Expo.

I am sure all of you can all find excuses why you cannot come to Las Vegas in October but, let me remind you of this very important point. Can you not afford to attend? If you want to know what your competitors are doing in wide format and where they see the opportunities you need to come to Las Vegas.

The SGIA Expo historically attracts over 22,000 attendees and every vendor who supplies anything to do with wide format output. Combining a PEIR Conference with the SGIA expo allows you to learn about sales strategies for selling your display graphics and to experience firsthand some of the new technologies and applications that your customers will be interested in knowing more about.

More reasons why you should attend:

1. We negotiated a great deal at the MGM Hotel ($100)
2. Low Conference Fee ($135 Includes access to SGIA Convention, monorail pass and dinner at the SGIA)
3. Experience the latest developments in Wide Format Color Technologies and Applications
4. Attend the largest Wide Format Print Convention in the world.
5. Learn what your competitors are doing in WF Color.
6. Selling WF Color in Vertical Markets
7. Learn How to Sell at Higher Prices

To register or to request more information about the PEiR Group Color Graphics Sales and Technology Conference or the SGIA Expo click here:

Do you have a High School Senior that is planning on attending college?

If you have a High School Senior there is a four-year scholarship program offered by Coca-Cola to 250 high school seniors. The application period is open from August 1 to October 31 — it’s a pretty tight window, but there are very few restrictions on applicants.

The application requirements are simple, and this is a merit based scholarship.
So if you have a senior in high school, the Coke program is where you should look now.

Application Information is available here:
Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation — Applications open from 8/1/2010 thru 10/31/2010
https://www.coca-colascholars.org/cokeWeb/page.jsp?navigation=15

SGIA Survey Shows Retail As Leading Market for Imagers

"The survey shows strong evidence that specialty imagers - garment decorators and graphics producers alike - are exploring new markets and opportunities as a way to bolster their businesses," said Dan Marx, SGIA's Vice President of Markets and Technologies. "Further, the survey shows how specialty imaging companies are using sales, management and production initiatives to strengthen their competitive advantage."

According to the US report, about 71 percent of imagers agree that referrals are a very effective way to attract new customers, while only about 3 percent rely on online directory listings for new business. To increase their competitive advantage in production, 37.6 percent of all imagers are adding finishing capabilities to their businesses - up from 29.1 percent in 2009.

The survey also concludes that retail (direct and indirect through ad agencies) continues to be the leading market for graphic imagers (75.7 percent). For garment decorators, educational institutions (77 percent) and corporate branding (72 percent) are among the primary markets served.

Quark Promote Update

Quark Promote — a new direction for Quark (read full article)
This is a follow-up on an eariler blog posting regarding Quark Promote. Check out the new improvements to the Quark print partners program!

Managed Print Services

Many of you have heard of Managed Print Services, or MPS but I would guess that many of you have not thought about the effect that MPS will have on your business in the near future.

As a way of providing you with a frame of reference for MPS in general, take a look at the graphic above. It’s from the research firm, Photizo Group, and helps explain important aspects of the future of MPS.

Things to keep in mind:

• First, the overall market for professional print services isn’t projected to grow that much in the coming years.
• Second, while the market isn’t likely to grow as a whole, it will be changing dramatically. Over the next four years, your customers will be aggressively converting from buying and managing their own printers, to outsourcing all print services through MPS. How aggressively is the market likely to convert? The graph above shows that $50 billion of the traditional print services market will be moving to MPS by 2013!
• Third, this means that your share of the market will come under attack from other print providers, especially equipment manufacturers and equipment resellers who will tell your customers, “Hey, we do all your other printing, why don’t we throw in your wide-format work, too?”
• Fourth, wide-format printing is only a small part of this overall market, so even though the market isn’t growing, your share of the print market can increase dramatically by pursuing MPS. Why? Because for every wide-format printer in a typical office, there are frequently 10 additional small format or multi-function devices!

The observations above go a long way in answering at least two fundamental questions about your strategic direction with regard to MPS:

Q: Why should you consider pursuing MPS?
A: The overall print services market isn’t projected to grow aggressively. As such, you need to defend the market share you have, and grow aggressively inside the overall market. You can do this by converting the FM business you have to MPS, and leveraging your strengths to capture new business through your MPS offering.
Q: Why is there such a sense of urgency on MPS?
A: The conversion of the market is happening fast — $50 billion of converted business is projected in less than four years. If you don’t capture this business, someone else will take it from you.

* At its simplest, MPS is managing hard copy device fleets (copiers, printers, multifunction devices, and fax machines) in a unified fashion. Essentially, this means a client outsources ALL of their printing resources to you – you run their on-site printing, off-site printing and document management & storage.

Thanks............Shaun

Sell Software to Grow Sales and Profits

As the economy continues to linger in the doldrums many reprographers are struggling to make ends meet. For some reprographers, revenues are down as much as 50 percent from the industry highs of 2008 and profitability, of any amount, is becoming difficult to realize. What more, Reprographers are struggling to develop strategies to survive. The AEC clients reprographers serve are fraught with the same economic realities and are dramatically changing their organizations in size and the ways they do business. Demand for traditional printing and other services are down as your clients continue to adopt digital workflows to save costs and improve productivity.

Recessions become catalysts for change -- for everyone and every business. If you do not realize that you need to embrace change you have the prospect of becoming irrelevant when the economy returns to somewhat normal. As business leaders, it is extremely important that you strategize on ways that you can re-position your company’s message and resources so you will be prepared to offer the right products and services that your marketplace with need after it experiences the paradigm shift that will result.

The profiles of the companies that survive the recession will likely be smaller but more efficient. If you agree with this conclusion then you might want to develop a strategy for your companies to offer solutions that will allow your customers to do more with less. This is where software becomes an ally to your business strategy. Offering a range of tools to help your customers to do things more efficiently with less labor has significant value to companies. Take Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Salesforce.com and a host of other software vendors they are all growing at astronomically rates during the recession. Why? Do they know something that you don’t? I believe they know that people today and in the future will want convenient tools that are internet enabled to conduct business any time and any place. People are willing to pay to use internet enabled tools and this is where reprographers need to make a leap to selling software as a new revenue generating area for their businesses.

The beautiful thing about selling software it is very profitable and in some cases requires very little cost to sell. The trend in software today is selling Software as a Service (SaaS). You might ask, what is SaaS? Software as a Service is the idea of selling the use of software that runs over the internet and users subscribe or rent to use of the software by a user/seat licenses on a per month or per year basis. The software can be acquired immediately with minimal costs and IT infrastructure for the customer.



More and more companies want SaaS. Users want to be able to use technology when they want it, where they want it. The revenues from SaaS are often reoccurring and can add significantly to your company’s profitability month after month; year after year.

If you are interested in learning about software products you can sell to your AEC clients attend one of the PEiR Group’s webinars by visiting this link.

Don’t let the current economy make you numb and unable to develop strategies for your company’s future success. Take a few moments to see the world as it is changing around you, look at the trends, make some conclusions and take some action.

Best

Shaun Meany