Become A Part of Your Customer’s Strategic Procurement Using Web2Print

No matter what their size, companies need to view and understand their spending and manage their suppliers. Strategic procurement is one way of controlling the process. We might have rolled our eyes when our parents said a pound saved is a pound earned, but now we know it’s the difference between making a profit, or not!

As suppliers, we know that being easy to work with can make a huge difference with the companies that buy from us. It’s not just about being easy to talk to, flexible and agreeable with the decision maker. If you are supplying products and services to a company that has a procurement department, it is very likely that they use procurement software. Awareness of what they are using is a good start to getting onto and keeping yourself on that Preferred Suppliers List.

Procurement software is now a hugely powerful tool to keep track of contracts and spending. It can reduce costs by using centralised purchasing files which are accessible to team members from anywhere in the world just to give one example. Procurement professionals know that different departments will order the same things and that there are opportunities for negotiation due to economies of scale. If Operations, Finance and HR are ordering headed paper from different printers than the printer that marketing is ordering from, there is an opportunity for one of those printers to get all of that business. Which printer is going to win that race?

For the purposes of this blog, we’ll use the generic term ‘procurement software’, but this can take a range of different names and guises. Vpress are incredibly experienced at managing its integration on behalf of our customers. Coreprint Web2Print is able to integrate into all of the major procurement software packages out on the market today.

What Has Web2Print Got to do With This?

When you are an organisation using a system such as Coreprint Pro – all of your customers have access to their very own online Storefront with products included within. Some are just simply items that can be ordered, others are items that need to be personalised, such as Point of Sale material. Your client can just log in to that system, order what they need, and depending upon the parameters set, either check out or seek sign off on that purchase. All purchases are logged, users have their individual login details – so it is easy to see who is buying… or not buying what.

It is really helpful for those in charge of procurement as they have access to reports about spending on their printing and office products, but the dream is being able to do it through their existing procurement software. This is one element of strategic procurement that is very important – automation.

Instead of having to log in to every supplier’s portal, if the supplier could just integrate their system into with the buyer’s procurement software then this would save a lot of time and effort. With the right Web2Print provider, this can be a simple and very beneficial process. It is called “RoundTrip” or “PunchOut” integration. If you are the kind of business that wants to work with medium to large Enterprises, then this is what you need to consider and ask for when choosing your Web2Print provider.

How Does An Integrated Web2Print System Mean I Can Get Paid Quicker?

After the integration has been set up, there are a number of steps that you will now bypass to get paid. The price has already been agreed and once an item is ordered, a purchase order is raised. It is an automated process that reduces processing times and queries regarding invoices, because the information has already been filled in advance. The buyer has enough information to know this is a legitimate purchase. Of course, they may still have their payment terms, but the back and forth between departments is greatly reduced – and both Supplier and Buyer are able to use the reporting function if there is any query at all.

What Are The Other Benefits To This Kind of Integration?

As well as getting paid more quickly without query?

• If the purchasing process is managed by the individual buyer, and if you are using our ‘Elements’ module too, then you the printer can receive work into your own production Workflow without even manually quoting or touching a job. It creates process efficiencies for the both of you.
• Your client is having their brand controlled – no more maverick spend on print from other printers having used the wrong colour on the wrong stock and coming out with something that is unfaithful to their brand. There can be brand management from the utilisation of an integrated Web2Print platform.
• You are providing your client with a service that is helping them to save money and free up vital resource in the procurement department. It is a great reason for this supplier to continue your professional relationship as long as the product and service continue to be good.
• It allows a printer to become much more competitive and have the ability to win larger contracts because they have the software and the infrastructure that matches the buyer’s.
• Payment can be as quick as four working days. The automated process is streamlined to promote efficiency for the Buyer right down to issuing payment in an automated method.
• Management of the purchasing process for different users and departments as users may have different credit levels with different suppliers
• Consolidated catalogues, although it may mean for the strategic procurement department a reduction of the number of Suppliers to manage internally, there is a greater opportunity for Printers to obtain benefit from a single customer; so they could win work for example with all of a company’s offices instead of just the one they are working with already.
• Reporting at every level of the company’s spend and ordering status

Get On and Stay on the Preferred Suppliers List

With Web2Print, it is possible get on and stay on the Customer’s preferred supplier list for the long term. Vpress can offer storefronts with approval and sign off options along with round-trip integration into many of the major procurement software suppliers. If you would like to use this within your own printing business contact us today for a demonstration.