Memphis, TN, February 14, 2005 – Vanick Group, a leading provider of software solutions, is helping one of its customers to cut the cost of producing sales literature by 40 percent with its digital communications solution, Customer Communications Manager (CCM).

 

The customer, the U.S. Orthopedics division of Smith & Nephew, is also using the digital print capabilities offered by CCM to personalize its print communications and eliminate the wasteful practice of stockpiling excessive quantities of conventionally printed materials.

 

Stacy Cooper, a spokesperson for Smith & Nephew, expects the print-on-demand system to streamline the procurement of sales literature for the company, a U.K.-based manufacturer of medical systems and equipment. She says that a major benefit of implementing CCM is being able to update sales pieces in any desired quantity on very short notice — an advantage she sees as essential to remaining competitive in the fast-changing world of medical technology. 

 

According to Lou Powell, a principal owner of Vanick Group, the system replaces a traditional lithographic print process in which bulk orders were printed and inventoried, then packed and shipped as requests came in for any of 150 preprinted sales pieces. Now, Powell says, Smith & Nephew’s field sales representatives can print what they need as the need arises, customizing the content for their clients and saving Smith & Nephew about 40 percent of what it had been spending under its old production model. 

 

While accessing the CCM application from any location via the internet, Smith & Nephew sales reps select literature from a variety of product categories. The rep can choose to send a digitally printed piece or to send that communication via email. Once a printed literature order is confirmed, the information is digitally transmitted to a digital printing facility. There the order is printed to the rep’s specifications and shipped the same day. “The system allows customized, variable-content print orders to be mailed to a sales rep’s office, or to a hospital or a doctor’s office — wherever the rep chooses,” Powell points out.

 

Because digital print-on-demand, unlike conventional printing, has no minimum run length requirements, the order quantity can be precisely the number of pieces that the rep needs. This removes not only the cost of over-ordering material, but also the likelihood of accumulating obsolete literature— always a risk with medical technology, where advances and refinements in techniques and treatments are continuous. In fact, says Powell, Smith & Nephew hopes to completely phase out its physical inventory of sales literature early this year.

 

The CCM solution eventually will enable Smith & Nephew’s 400-strong field sales force to place on-demand print orders for 600 different items. Other features of the system, Powell adds, include control of department spending by cost center; management reporting of communications activity; premium fulfillment; and electronic greeting cards.

 

The real power of the CCM solution implemented for Smith & Nephew, Powell says, lies in the data management capability that digital printing makes possible.

 

“Black-and-white and color digital presses allow the production of short-run variable data. But digital printing’s true value lies in personalization — in its ability to enable one-to-one marketing with highly relevant communication. Driving print-on-demand with just-in-time access to visual communication can help companies like Smith & Nephew reduce inventory and meet the needs of a dispersed sales force.”

 

Cooper, a Smith & Nephew group manager for product planning and support in Memphis, TN, gives the system high marks for convenience and efficiency. “It takes a process that required tens and tens of steps to complete and reduces it to four or five steps, ” she says.   She also sees it as a way to avoid the often-exorbitant costs of updating educational and promotional information.

 

“Because of changes, we scrapped $300,000 worth of literature last year,” Cooper notes. “Now we can re-brand and update with only peripheral design costs to consider. We also have the flexibility to print information just three days before a new product or technology launch to include the most up-to-date information possible.”

 

Vanick Group is a full service Information Technology Services Provider with a proven track record of successful hardware and software implementations for private and public sector clients.

Since 1998, Vanick Group has been providing exceptional IT services to its clients with one overriding principle: We provide Information Systems products and professional services of superior quality and value that best fulfill the needs of our customers.

 

We will achieve that purpose through an organization and working environment which attracts the finest people; fully develops and challenges our individual talents; encourages our free and spirited collaboration to build and grow our business; and is founded on our bedrock principles of integrity and doing the right thing.

 

Drawing upon our years of proven experience in Project Management, Applications Implementation, Applications Development, and Technical Configuration, Vanick Group assists clients with all aspects of mySAP R/3, Web-based applications, and Systems Integration. In addition to these offerings, we concentrate on optimizing client installations of Information Systems by leveraging our collective talents in Applications Support, Operating Systems, and Database expertise, and proven Project Management for large and small projects.