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A modern approach to MIS provided versatility in small format, large format and label work
Ballyprint is a commercial printer offering small format, large format, and label work with designs services to customers across Ireland. “We mostly work with SMEs, hospitality, marketing, and creative sectors,” says Managing Director, Aaron Klewchuck.
Based in Ballymena, about 30 minutes drive north of Belfast in Ireland, the company was set up in 2009 as a copy shop. Rapid expansion into commercial print led to three moves to larger premises in the first four years. In 2015, they saw the launch of a new service, Perfect Day Print, specialising in bespoke wedding stationary. Today Ballyprint employs 13 people and is planning to recruit five more production staff.
Ballyprint needed a modern, versatile MIS to handle its spread of print work across small format, large format, and labelling. It wanted to replace its existing five-year old system, which was largely dedicated to large format work. After much research it chose printIQ in 2020 and despite interruptions due to COVID lockdowns, it is now implemented and the cloud-based remote access is being progressively rolled out to its customer base.
“Our first MIS system was a custom-build system, but we outgrew this very quickly,” says Klewchuck. “We then adopted an MIS system from the USA, which primarily catered to large format work. We were attracted to its production boards, which did help our process become leaner. It did, however, lack the estimating intelligence we required for quoting, which we still had to do manually.”
Klewchuck shared that they used this system for over six years but were looking for an alternative for nearly two of those years. “During that time, we demoed nearly 50 different providers. I am originally a graphic designer by trade and what drew my eye to printIQ was the simple navigated design and uncomplicated user interface. Once I had a closer look at printIQ I was very impressed with the pricing engine and the end-to-end management, which could help us grow as a business.”
“I have to add that the support on the build has been the highlight of printIQ as a company. From initial build meetings to check-in meetings from the managing staff, printIQ has been great to work with – especially our build team lead by Vaughan, who has been very helpful and still remains so after going live.”
“The biggest thing for us as a company has been the process of estimating,” says Klewchuck. “We have gone from spending hours on complicated quotes to being able to send this in minutes to a customer. The pricing engine in printIQ is amazing, the transparency and in-depth information regarding a job has led us to see where we have been losing margin on historical jobs. Artwork automation is also another driving factor, with the seamless integration with Enfocus Switch, which has let us deploy pre-press staff to other departments.”
The team has already onboarded ten of their top customers as a beta, so they can track and request quotes. “We plan to increase this to 25 customers in the current quarter of 2022 and then our top 50 customers the following quarter. This has definitely been a big talking point with our sales department, as this will give us the opportunity and time to better service others customers while increasing our top line.”
“With only a few months from going live it is hard to give exact figures, but with the transparency of the quote engine and the pricing structure we have implemented, our goal is to increase our bottom line by 15-20% by the end of the year. With the help of printIQ I am totally confident this is achievable.”
Aaron Klewchuck, Managing Director
Ballyprint