Leading Financial Services Provider Streamlines Retail Training Materials and Controls Costs on Quick-Turn Printing

With a retail footprint spanning eight states, the Retail Performance Development group at this leading financial holding company was challenged when it came to maintaining consistency in training materials and controlling the associated costs.  Composed of a team of two central administrators and 20 course designers, the Retail Performance Development group maintained responsibility for course management and the timely execution of course training materials, from creation to delivery, across their extensive banking network. 

This training group relied on a large retail copy provider for their ad hoc, or one time, quick-turn print jobs to meet the tight deadlines of their active training schedule.  With no metrics or reporting structure in place, the organization struggled to gain a clear picture of the costs associated with the production and distribution of retail training materials, as well as additional ad hoc printing needs.  The team sought a scalable solution to not only streamline the delivery of consistent, branded retail training materials for the company’s population of 30,000 employees, but also to centralize the buying of quick-turn printing. 

Dealing with Uncertainty
Each print provider which the Retail Performance Development group used had their own unique processes and procedures in place for managing quick-turn print requests.  As a result, this leading financial services provider experienced variances in product quality, reporting metrics, customer service, brand consistency and pricing.  This created obstacles in the firm’s attempt to deliver the most effective corporate-wide solution for training material packages.

Pricing was particularly challenging with their primary quick-turn printing program since there was no way to develop a single corporate-wide pricing structure for items.  Each individual outlet was permitted to decide whether to honor pre-arranged pricing agreements with the company which led to the inability to deliver consistent pricing across the bank’s internal customer base.  Pricing was completed manually, taking a minimum of one day and in some cases up to five to price an order.  Processes were further complicated by poor customer service, untimely invoicing, and the inability to give project level detail.

The firm’s challenge was to change business processes, vendor relationships and the corporate culture, in order to realize savings both short and long term.  The company did not have the time or resources to build their own application solutions, and turned to Standard Register’s best-in-class document management expertise for help. 

A Platform for Success
By integrating Standard Register’s SMARTworks® technology into their business processes, this leading financial service provider now has the ability to meet the on-demand printing needs of not only the Retail Performance Development group, but also nearly 3000 other employees.  The transition from a sub-optimal order entry process to the Web-based SMARTworks platform was a natural extension of the way bank associates work, encouraging users to direct their print jobs via the optimal printing method.  This kept spending under control at nationwide-contract rates.

Via a punchout from Ariba’s procurement platform to SMARTworks, ad hoc printing requests originating from other parts of the bank can be managed and tracked through a single e-procurement tool, and Standard Register’s print and distribution methodologies. 

The firm made the decision to implement an e-procurement platform so that end users had a single, standardized process for handling any business transaction.  Now, Ariba users throughout the organization can get what they need, when they need it and where they need it.  Because the two technologies are compatible, users will have the ability to upload a file from their desktops, configure the document's print specifications, and request a short-run, quick-turn print job from one of Standard Register's on-demand printing centers.

Based on the success the Retail Performance Development group had, and their ability to now focus on key job responsibilities such as course content development, the company already has plans to expand their quick print capabilities to their distribution center in order to meet the ad hoc printing needs of branch locations across the retail bank network.