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By Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor This application was demonstrated to EFI users and to media attendees at EFI’s Connect conference, held in Miami earlier this summer. The feedback at the conference was extremely positive, as attendees saw the value of the integrated, real-time view into the business enabled by EIS. The application is expected to be commercially available around the end of 2005, depending on the results of the beta cycle. Product manager Mike Henderson indicated that the product was stable, and that EFI did not anticipate significant issues to arise during beta. As the pace picks up on adoption of MIS solutions in the printing industry, there is a need for a more flexible and effective way to access all of the data these solutions make available for both real-time decision-making and longer-term strategy and planning. Oftentimes, too much information can be as disabling as not enough information, and busy managers don’t always take the time to sift through, in a timely fashion, the vast quantity of printed and electronic reports their systems can generate. Or if they have not yet implemented a Print MIS solution, the business information they receive is frequently outdated before the reports are even available. In today’s fast-paced and competitive world, one of the biggest competitive advantages a printer can have is real-time access to critical business information that will enable a proactive—rather than a reactive—response to problems and opportunities. With applications like EIS available, it may ease the decision process for printers who have not yet made the leap to implement Print MIS. For EFI, EIS become the glue that seamlessly links all of its various business management tools together, including Print MIS, PrintFlow scheduling, and other add-ons the company has available. This type of business intelligence application—or dashboard model—has been available in other industries for some time, yet has been slow to come to the printing industry. EFI’s EIS operates as an interactive analysis tool that gives the printer a visual recap of the state of the business, with the ability to ask questions and drill down to more detail. It appears to be easy to configure, and can contain information from both within and outside of the business. For example, an executive user can easily set up real-time news feeds from sites like WhatTheyThink, stock trading information, or links to the web sites of key customers. At the same time, data from within the organization is easily accessible from the same screen, without the need to import or export information between applications or print voluminous reports. A sample screen shot is included here.
The application can also be extended to other roles within the organization, including production, customer service, and others, as appropriate. At Connect, in the media/analyst session, EFI used live customer data—with that customer’s permission, of course. In that case, the customer data reflected a very large number of estimates in the system that had not been closed—either moved to an order, marked as lost, or never executed by the customer for other reasons. This is a good example of the type of instant insight into the business an owner or manager can get access to. In the case of this particular customer, it could be assumed that they would take steps to clear those out, and to migrate to a process where estimate disposition is entered as soon as it is determined, enabling real-time analysis of why they won—or lost—bids for business, by customer, by type of product being requested, or any other relevant criteria. It is this type of immediate feedback that allows business to run more intelligently. And tools like EIS will be helpful in point out process deficiencies within the organization that can then be corrected. The EIS technology takes advantage of an OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) analysis service as well as new data analysis and query tools built by EFI so that printers can quickly get up to speed with EIS. It also eliminates the need to learn complex report generating tools like Crystal Reports. The application will be resident on the customer’s server, inside the customer’s firewall, to eliminate any potential security concerns. It has default templates available so there is no need to start with a clean sheet, although that is certainly an alternative. EFI indicates that the templates make it possible for an executive to customize, and start taking advantage of, the application, within minutes of installation. In order to speed adoption of this critical business tool, EFI indicates that customers who are currently on maintenance with any of EFI’s Print MIS solutions will receive a limited number of free licenses to the product. This is intended to make it easy for executives to try the application, and once it has been implemented, to determine whether additional licenses are needed. As we increasingly migrate to digital workflows, and from a craft-based business to a integrated manufacturing operation, it is no longer possible or realistic for printers to run their businesses effectively and profitably without good access to real-time business intelligence. It is encouraging to see the availability of applications like EIS that make it easier to access timely, accurate business information. As I think back to announcements and new developments that were unveiled at Connect, there were quite a few, and many of them were pretty exciting. But it seems to me that EIS was the single most important application demonstrated there—an opinion that was shared by many of the EFI users I spoke to during the conference. To the extent the adoption rate among printers for Print MIS solutions continues to grow, and to the extent those printers take full advantage of the data these solutions provide by using applications like EIS, perhaps we will begin to stem the tide of business closures in our industry, and see a return to more consistent profitability for the industry as a whole.
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Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Cary Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. In that capacity, she developed and implemented a branding campaign to build brand awareness for IKON in the marketplace as well as enhance employee pride in the organization, and was responsible for all internal and external communications, including trade shows and events, corporate newsletters, and industry and press relations. In the outsourcing role, she set strategic objectives and priorities for IKON’s product and services portfolio in its Outsourcing businesses, including development of programs and sales support materials for that environment. Sherburne was a Director at CAP Ventures, an internationally known firm specializing in market research and strategic consulting for the digital document and print on demand industry, before joining IKON, where she launched and managed the company’s Document Outsourcing Consulting Service. Her tenure in the printing and publishing industry has also included sales and marketing positions at Xerox Corporation, Indigo America and Bitstream. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and a recognized author. Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.
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