Vpress and Time Harvest propel growth at MJCP

There has never been a time of such challenge for print service providers (PSPs), and yet there has also never been a time of such opportunity.

This is the very positive and shared view of Web to Print specialist Vpress and management information system (MIS) developer Time Harvest – which have revealed a new partnership that is already providing very significant benefits to their respective customers.

MJCP are a classic example of such a customer, which has quickly adapted to the shift towards online ordering. This trend has been accelerated by the Pandemic, and MJCP moved rapidly to empower and support their customers to remain operational and continue their business activities.

Backed by a company with more than 50 years of industry experience, Ray Barber – Operations Director of MJCP – says the integration of Vpress and Time Harvest technology platforms has been, “fundamental to their ability to adapt and grow”.

A powerful combination

“We won a big care home client, which was largely based on the fact that we had a system like Vpress that could integrate with our existing Time Harvest MIS,” says Ray, who has overseen the implementation and integration of both software platforms.

MJCP offers a cornucopia of print solutions from leaflets and brochures through to large-format signage and specialist reprographics. The attraction of Vpress Coreprint was not only that it was a user-friendly and powerful tool, but also that its immense variable data capabilities could be leveraged across this broad base of products.

Ray continues: “Streamlining the orders our care home client had for print items across 300 locations has made a very big difference to the efficiency of their operation. Not only can they control their brand identity, but they can also now ensure there is uniform communications and marketing being produced across the group.

“There staff can now just login, specify and personalise the products they want and go. It has made a big difference to their operation. All that variable data is no longer an arduous time heavy job to process, they now have an extremely user-friendly interface that goes straight through to our production lines.”

A stitch in time saves nine

The benefits for Vpress and Time Harvest customers of their collaboration are clearly demonstrated by the experience of MJCP, and the partnership has worked due to a shared philosophy around developing software that is easy to use, quick to integrate and cost-effective to implement.

Peter Aylott, Managing Director of Time Harvest has a wealth of experience in the print industry, having started working at its coal face more than 20 years ago.

Working for multi-national print technology developer Oce, he came across Time Harvest and thought it was highly effective as the entry point into digital invoicing and reconciliation. So much so that he began recommending it to SME print businesses to complement their hardware investment.

Peter takes up the story: “The rest is history, so they say. I developed a close working relationship with the company, and a few years later – in the famous words of Victor Kiam – ‘I was so impressed, I bought the company’.”

The key strength of the Time Harvest platform is that it allows SME print businesses to move quickly and easily from manual pricing processes or transition from in-house systems they have outgrown.

Peter also explains that a significant number of his customers have also moved to Time Harvest after experiencing highly complex and expensive MIS systems they have never been able to fully utilise.

“We are a solid bedrock supplier to our customers,” says Peter, who adds: “We have built up loyalty with them through delivering on our promises and adapting our technology to suit their needs as required.”

Peter further explains that the choice to partner with Vpress not only came out of the needs of key customers such as MJCP, but because, “they are very good at adding additional products and services to their offering to support their customers.”

Peter continues: “They are the major product in the market and in the Web to Print space they offer an affordable and sustainable way to enter it.

“The biggest trends we are responding to in the market is that our customers are experiencing a growth in the number of jobs they are processing but against fairly static revenue levels. They are also managing this on a very tight ship resource-wise. So, they need all their workflow and management processes of jobs to be as efficient and lean as possible – with minimal touchpoints.”

He concludes: “I can clearly see a trend that those with web to print are able to leverage their specialisms more effectively, reach a wider audience and really punch above their weight.”

Honing their edge

Key to being successful in today’s print market is being adaptable to change explains Ray, who adds: “Where Vpress and Time Harvest help is they have allowed us to streamline the businesses, automate a lot more of our systems, and enable us to be competitive at speed – which is critical – especially in today’s environment.

“Without that presence online backed up by solid back office systems, you don’t capture that next generation of customers. Having a web presence and having that shop front available, with excellent service behind it, is absolutely critical.” 

Ray adds that without having partners such as Vpress and Time Harvest, which make automation and online ordering so simple, “we really would be struggling.”

Ray concludes: “Both systems are very simple system to use and the customer service as well as support from them is really excellent.

“Vpress orders now go live into the Time Harvest solution, taking away manual job bag booking, and from our perspective, it is fantastic and has saved a lot of time.”