By DPS Staff
Moxy Ox, based in Tontitown, AR, began as the graphic design department of Chandler Equipment, a manufacturer of vacuum pumps, valves, and mufflers for tanker trucks. The company purchased an HP Indigo 5500 press to produce its own catalogs. Other companies were impressed with the quality of these catalogs and subsequently asked the graphic design department to produce marketing collateral for them as well. Business became frequent enough that it allowed the department to spin off and become Moxy Ox.
Today, the print and design company’s product offerings are considered boutique work in custom sizes and stocks. It offers specialty double- and triple-thick stocks, including soft touch double-thick options to create items such as business cards, postcards, notepads, wall graphics, stickers, notebooks, and brochures. Its client base of upscale retailers, agencies, and designers includes Simmons, Vimeo, and Walmart. These customers are located nationwide.
Moxy Ox began with a homegrown management information system (MIS), but as the business evolved, it knew it needed to implement something more robust. Its original system was a combination of a free online project management tool and a homemade pricing system. Hours were spent manually typing estimates, emailing clients, and rekeying data into a separate accounting system. There was no customer tracking, no central data repository for job history, little knowledge of profit and loss margins for each job type, and it was challenging to change prices or options.
After reviewing a number of solutions, Moxy Ox chose PressWise, a Software as a Service print workflow and MIS from SmartSoft. It was implemented in just over a month, with the most time-consuming portion of the installation inputting details about every type of paper stock the company prints on.
Functionality, ease of use, and time savings were top of mind when choosing the new MIS and PressWise delivers. According to Matt Huber, head of operations, Moxy Ox, before PressWise, it took at least ten minutes to generate a quote, which then had to be found by scanning emails. “Now a customer service representative can get a quote to someone while on the phone in under a minute. The auto-imposing saves press operators hours of time, and the fully integrated shipping module means that there is no rekeying of data,” he continues.
Moxy Ox’s customers are also thrilled with the new system. PressWise includes a digital preview option that allows customers to access a designed piece before it prints. In addition, online tracking is a favorite. For example, Trisha Logan, owner, Shindig Paperie, a curated stationary store in Fayetteville, AR enjoys looking at pricing and order history online. Since implementing PressWise and all of the data it’s stored/collected, Huber has seen an influx of work from customers like Shindig Paperie.
In addition to happy customers and increased sales, PressWise’s data is providing insight into Moxy Ox’s business. All of its jobs are run through the MIS, even internal marketing pieces. Monitoring the process from end to end has allowed the company to make some adjustments in their own marketing pieces now that they know their true cost.
“I was able to adjust product pricing on items that we now know had ridiculously low margins. We can focus on tracking what products are and aren’t moving. And our accountant loves it because now we are tracking how much money we had tied up in paper stock in the building,” explains Huber.
