By Cassandra Balentine
Part one of two
The September issue of DPS magazine looks at essential features of modern print MIS, including ease of use, accessibility, and reporting and analytics. Another piece of the puzzle is integration. Today’s MIS communicate with accounting, customer relationship management, design, and payment processing applications to ensure end-to-end support.
David Graves, CEO, Aleyant, sees integration as a top priority and necessary across the board for its customers and products.
As a platform with a very robust API framework, Craig Powell, GM, North America, printIQ, says printIQ has many conversations about integration into a lot of different types of platforms. “The ones we see regularly include web to print (W2P), prepress automation, and accounting.”
“At the moment we see an increased interest in W2P and because of that we are improving our webshop front-end integration to help our clients achieve greater efficiency, create better customer experiences, and more informed decision-making, staying competitive in their market,” offers Helle Vogt Mikkelsen, head of marketing and strategic partnerships, PrintVis.
Each print shop has different integration requirements based on specific workflows. “W2P, shipping, and accounting integration may be the only requirements for some shops today. More advanced shops may want to integrate digital front ends (DFEs), inserters, and other production devices. End-to-end, integrated automated workflows require vendors who “play well with all solutions” versus limiting the choice of integration partners. Flexibility and scalability to grow as your business requirements grow should be a key consideration,” offers Matt Prusa, senior director, software sales, Avanti Slingshot, RICOH Graphic Communications.
Adam Homsi, founder, InkCloud, points out that marketing and analytics integrations for its store front are in high demand as brands require deeper insight into use patterns and the ability to run sophisticated marketing campaigns.
Mark Alioto, CEO, Revshop, also lists design on demand, freight carrier, and customer procurement platforms like Ariba, as common integration requests.
In recent years, Jef Stoffels, head of marketing, Dataline, notes a particular interest in integration of ecommerce systems that calculate and automate the incoming orders through ebusiness as well as connections with logistics suppliers and expedition platform to secure controlled, timely, and traceable delivery of all shipments.
Summarizing his experiences over the past several years, Alfonso A. Hernandez, Jr., VP of sales, HiFlow Solutions, sees two main types of customers. “The first group essentially wants to implement an MIS/ERP tool but does not want to interfere with other business processes such as accounting or prepress management. In this approach, the goal of MIS is to fill the gaps between existing systems and enable quick and full integration to not only facilitate work but also automate certain processes that were previously lacking in the organization.”
The second group of customers sees the implementation of an MIS system as an opportunity for broader organizational changes, introducing solutions that not all MIS systems offer, such as full warehouse management or comprehensive quality control systems. “We are also doing more EDI integrations, which help optimize supply chain issues,” adds Hernandez.
Hernandez says another important area is real-time monitoring of machine performance and production processes, which allows for increased efficiency in the plant.
“Much depends on how open companies are to innovation and what their technological horizon looks like. From our perspective, the best benefits from implementations are achieved by organizations that want to build their competitive advantage through process automation and data integration,” concludes Hernandez.
New Integrations
The list of integration capabilities is long and growing.
“The point of third-party integrations is that they solve a very specific problem and are of value to clients, therefore always something we want to offer,” says Homsi.
“The more the business and production processes of printing companies can be automated, the more these companies will be able to respond to todays’ needs of faster turnarounds, shorter run lengths, and sharper pricing. In particular, the integration of administrative workflows with production workflows is under full development and offers bright perspectives beyond what we already see today with JDF/JMF or API connections,” offers Stoffels.
Graves says integrations are a large focus for its company since all of its customers and potential customers strive for communication between all software.
“The need for integrations will only continue to increase as companies look for ways to do more with less and achieve more of their automation initiatives. Additionally, the ability to bring in revenue through order ingestion from multiple sources continues to be in demand as businesses try and expand online offerings,” shares Powell.
“What we see in the market is an increasing number of value-oriented customers. They don’t just ask about integrations as such; they want to know how implementing these integrations can enhance their processes and, consequently, positively impact business. Year after year, we observe a trend where more clients recognize the value of the critical automations we offer,” states Hernandez “In our experience, customers want to integrate with applications/systems that are continually expanded with new functionalities that meet real customer needs. This, in our opinion, is the primary driver of the popularity of certain solutions.”
Hernandez sees several emerging trends in the integration landscape that he expects to become even more popular soon. “One area that will become more popular are integrations with artificial intelligence (AI) and automations tools. We are currently working on Microsoft Power Apps and AI Hub integration, which will allow, for example, automated processing of sales orders—extracting data from PDFs and putting the data automatically into HiFlow without the need for retyping it by customer service representatives.”
Vogt Mikkelsen says AI is reshaping industries and the way we work across the board, and the print industry is no exception. “Microsoft Copilot, as an integral part of Business Central and PrintVis, offers several benefits to print businesses. Copilot is a conversational chat interface powered by generative AI. Copilot can automate repetitive tasks, saving time and reducing manual effort. It can also streamline various processes within your workflows, create compelling product descriptions, analyze data, identify trends, and provide insights related to inventory management, production planning, and resource allocation empowering you to stay competitive in the market.”
Internet of Things (IoT) described as a real-time monitoring is also shaping future needs for MIS integration. “This involves real-time monitoring of machine performance and production processes. It allows for real-time data collection directly from machines, which significantly increases productivity,” says Hernandez.
“As more devices become ‘smart devices,’ new integrations are inevitable to achieve complete workflow automation. More customers want business intelligence integrations. Shortly, integrations driven by AI will be the next wave of innovation,” comments Prusa.
“These integrations are driven by the need for greater efficiency, real-time data access, and enhanced decision-making capabilities. Companies that leverage these integrations are likely to gain a competitive edge by optimizing their operations and responding more swiftly to market changes,” adds Hernandez.
“Embedding your preferred platform into your customers’ various workflow software platforms enables stickiness and job volume growth,” shares Alioto.
Growing through Integration
Users are able to increase the power of print MIS through strategic integrations with third-party solutions focused on everything from accounting to design and marketing.
Read part two of this series, Modern Print MIS.
Sep2024, DPS Magazine
