Oce Digital Color Helps Franchising Leader Build Turnkey Marketing Services
ICED moves from offset to digital, franchise center owners benefit from personalized mailings
BOCA RATON, Fla., Dec. 19 - Oce (NASDAQ:OCENY), a global leader in digital document management and delivery solutions, announces that an Oce customer, the International Center for Entrepreneurial Development (ICED), has made the shift from offset outsourcing to in-house digital color, resulting in better support for their franchise network through more effective personalized mailings. Along with the convenience of web-based submission and the relevance of targeted personalization, this enhanced business model lets ICED offer more value-added services to their network to help franchise center owners grow revenue while reducing costs and improving targeting.
ICED is one of the largest alliances of print and copy, pack and ship, women's healthcare, and children's education franchises, with about 750 locations around the world. Using full color digital printing from Oce, ICED brought more marketing services in-house, achieving improved productivity and streamlined business processes and allowing their franchises to focus on driving revenue. ICED also saves time and money by eliminating offset printing for mailings.
"We didn't have the option to print before, and now in-house color capability lets us broaden our services," said Jay Groot, president of the Kwik Kopy Business Centers (KKBC), an ICED franchise. Because ICED provides these professional marketing campaigns, franchise owners have more time to concentrate on their businesses. The combination of high quality color and personalization brings greater effectiveness to mailing campaigns and increases the potential for capturing more leads for franchises.
ICED delivers personalized direct mailings in color for over 100 franchises in the US. Printing center owners can also use Oce digital color capability for their own customers' direct mail campaigns. "Franchises can offer this online as a more convenient service and expand their value," Groot said.
"We used to spend about one week a month doing mailings using outsourced offset printing at higher cost with less personalization and targeting," Groot said. Now ICED does it all in one pass with variable data printing on an Oce CPS 800 digital full color printer. Fewer production steps and reduced labor resulted in an estimated savings of about $20,000 a year, along with the elimination of wasted inventory of preprinted offset shells.
ICED has further increased the convenience of its turnkey marketing with a web ordering system integrated with the Oce CPS color printer. All marketing materials are now available in an online library of variable data applications for ready access by franchise centers. "The Oce CPS system has made it easier to do business with us. Before, we used to go back and forth faxing and typesetting. Now the franchise can go to the web site any time, log on and proof a PDF online. Once it's approved, they place their order, and it goes into the print queue, or they can download it to the franchise center for printing. This helps us hold down prices on pieces that get the most value," said Groot.
"The CPS 800 has been very consistent and of the highest quality. The printer maintains its speed even on the largest stocks," Groot said. ICED needs just one printer for a variety of work, including in-house materials, covers and color pages for their company magazine, as well as newsletters and postcards for mailings.
ICED averages over 100,000 full color pieces per month on the CPS 800 for newsletters, brochures and personalized postcard mailings. Average run length is 750 four-up postcards on 12"x18" sheets, or 188 pieces, although some runs have been as large as 11,000 pieces. Variable elements on postcards include franchise center address, recipient address, store coupons, maps, and sometimes an owner's photo.
About Oce
Oce is a leading provider of digital document management technology and services. The company's solutions are based on Oce's advanced software applications that deliver documents and data over internal networks and the Internet to printing devices and archives -- locally and around the world. Supporting the workflow solutions are Oce digital printers and scanners, considered the most reliable and productive in the world. Oce also offers a wide range of display graphics, consulting and outsourcing solutions.
Netherlands-based Oce N.V. (NASDAQ:OCENY), with a workforce of around 24,000 people and pro forma annualized revenues of nearly $3.7 billion, active in approximately eighty countries, maintains research and manufacturing centers in the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Romania. Oce's North American headquarters is located in Chicago with major business units in Trumbull, CT; Chicago; New York City; Boca Raton, FL; Salt Lake City; Coventry, RI; and Vancouver, BC. North American revenues were $1.7 billion for fiscal 2005, and employment is currently 11,000. For more information about Oce, visit www.oceusa.com/. Outside the U.S., consult http://www.oce.com/.
Source: Oce
CONTACT:
Carro Ford Weston
Oce
+1-859-737-2816
carrof@earthlink.net
Web site: http://www.oceusa.com/
