BISS – Business Intelligence Software Solutions, encompasses a series of software developments that facilitate the management of a company’s full business cycle. How it is evolving, its benefits and the need for human guidance.
The industry evolution since the Industrial Revolution has been a single direction into better products, better services and a better quality of life for humanity. Our printing industry as we knew it for some years or even decades ago, has evolved to a Graphic & Visual Communications industry, where all we see, read and feel, comes from what we produce together with our customer’s branding and communication strategy, for their products and services. Everything revolves around consumers, shoppers, entertainment, and the needs humans have for their lives. This industry has the privilege of offering a transformation into images, sensations, and communication our daily habits since we born. And many times, the privilege to be aware and part of it before it is turned public! Every day we have new productions, new jobs and new projects to work on and this is the beauty of our industry.
We are born and grow while constantly gaining more skills and knowledge, our industry too has been also evolving better manufacturing, reducing times, becoming faster and easier for us and our customers. We have permanently renewed new equipment, based on better technology, bigger digitalization. The technology of the print providers gives us new ways of evolution every year allowing us to do it better, faster, easier and grow our companies.
At DGI – Digital Graphics Group International, we follow this evolution and keep ahead in the industry but we need more tools to go faster and to understand in real time what is happening and how we can better serve our customers and provide better work to our teams. Our digitalization we call BISS – Business Intelligence Software Solutions, and it helps us by creating a better world for all involved.
The ‘internal’ BISS, that helps us manage the full production, from entering jobs, scheduling manufacturing, quality control, till packaging, shipping, and delivery tracking. There are almost endless solutions to give us the precious information we need to control the full process, take corrective actions, and find new solutions for the continuous future improvement.
The ‘external’ BISS, that connects us to our customers, giving them better and easier solutions to place their orders, to follow the process and to also be informed and feel the same control. We can offer open portals capable of making the customer feel ‘at home’ and better engaged with us where they upload the files while we immediately and automatically check profiles for faster and better printing. We can follow the customer retention ratio, the customer value and we can offer him and ourselves complete data and information on their tools to communicate, their full chain of store spaces and the different ways to message. Where will the productions be distributed and installed. Where they are and what can be immediately changed if a strategic action is needed to help the customer succeed in his market.
For all this, digitalization is the key. Within these three areas, technology, internal and external, BISS controls all our business and makes better management decisions. We gain control of our production, our customer relation and how efficient we can be. Companies that don’t take this as a priority will not evolve for a better future and will lose their capacity for growing and differentiation.
But for all this to happen, we need human skills and decisions. Digitalization will not replace human labor and intelligence as it will create new jobs, new opportunities, and new occupations.
After the digitalization of the industry process and technology, which is on the side of our providers working always smarter to give better solutions and innovation, we have the digitalization of our knowledge for better decisions, better management, a better workflow and even engagement with our teams. This evolution allows us to target markets and customers with strong CRM’s. What segments do we want to work and what are the best players we need to focus on. How can we increase our customer retention, and how can we improve our customer value. Is it better to increase customer portfolio or customer value and loyalty? Where do we want to evolve and where can we go in the future with new products and a growing portfolio of products and services. These are marketing tools that will help us feed our companies with business. We know that there’s nothing better than an initial stress with volume and business to manage, even if the focus must be on a perfect relation between customer satisfaction and production capacity in a continuously growing line.
In terms of planification we’re able today to fully automatize the customer orders in a smooth and easy process both for the customer and for our production planning. Automatic uploads of files with immediate profile checking and color proof for the customer. Offering different pricing for different lead time production and delivery, is something that will help fill our production with correct workflow and customer satisfaction according to their needs. We are able to automatically manage the planification of a single machine with full production capacity with faster setups and no stops for material changes. Digitalization can allow us to do this from a single unit to multiple dozens of production equipment’s, from all different steps of the workflow with unlimited size and immediate ‘live’ information. This is the magic and dream world of productivity and profitability.
The exclusive and dedicated customer portals are responsible for a better and strong relationship with the customer, creating loyalty. I wouldn’t call it dependence but working as a team where we provide the customer all the information he needs from their products, sizes, geographics data and even updated assets they must work daily on their equal effort for growth and better serve their customers and consumers. When we work hand-in-hand with a customer, contributing and participating in their daily needs and strategy we move from a simple product/service provider to a strong and confident partner they can trust. We grow together in a unique win/win situation.
The multiple and different ERP systems that will control our production workflow will help us in all tasks we need, from raw materials stocking and lead time supplying, having available what we need, when we need it, reducing and managing the best cash immobilization. These tools can also help our working teams for better planning and to make an immediate decision on unexpected changes. I can’t see a company in our industry without this digitalization culture and willingness to invest, being able to evolve and grow. The information we get is vital and so valuable that it contributes to all aspects of management, workflow, all internal and external work relations and profitability.
Today still looks to be something from the future, but AI can in a very near future help manage our fluctuations of work and demand predictions. All our companies have a weekly, monthly, quarterly, variable workflow. This depends on the markets and segments we work, and we need management decisions to better control our resources. We will be able to have a view on tendencies from the markets and receive a better indication on how it may affect the need to communicate to our communities and markets. Imagine so many political and financial fluctuations like interest rates, inflation, weather, yearly seasons, can affect our life and how they affect our customers behavior and need to communicate. How many times, recessions result in more campaigns and communication to lead the consumer for promotions and keep our customers products sales.
AI is already used to replace the annoying voice recording calls announcement for quality control of our customers contacts, by hundreds of specific, segmented and classified ‘words’ that will immediately detect and identify the level of the conversation without recording it. We are able to classify the quality of our internal customer service while analyzing the customer satisfaction allowing an immediate reaction to ensure we’re on the right direction. This not only helps our management, but also our customer service team to better understand customer relations.
Coming from those already old and indispensable financial and accounting software’s that allow us to control our simple cash-flow and profitability, the recent digitalization of the full company can give a total and clear view on all sectors, departments and human resources for a better future and continuous fast improvement.
This short article is not intended to be a technical guide, but a light view of what is available and how the DGI members drive their companies from a management point of view.
drupa is the biggest event and show in the world for our industry. That’s the place where everyone will attend to become informed about the new evolutions and how to be updated and grow the right way. Having missed the last 2020 edition due to the global pandemic, we can only expect to see the biggest evolutions and innovations around the digitalization of our industry and all the above mentioned ‘BISS’ we have at our disposal. The DGI members from the five Continents will certainly not miss this one!
