Since printIQ was founded in New Zealand in 1999, 25 years ago, the print management information systems (MIS) provider has grown exponentially and now operates in Australia and New Zealand as well as North America and the United Kingdom
The ANZ region remains printIQ’s largest customer base, where General Manager Rachel Davis heads up the operation. Following a successful expansion to North America, IQ entered the UK in 2018, a year ahead of schedule. The company has also had an extremely successful period in that market, establishing itself as a challenger to the dominant MIS suppliers.
From February 1 three regional operations groups have been created to give printIQ’s global customers faster and more focused local market support. “This regional structure ensures we not only implement standard operating processes, but we also enable greater autonomy and flexibility for our teams to meet specific market and customer needs,” says CEO John Alden, who was in Australia (and New Zealand?) earlier this year to meet local staff and clients.
Each region manages the key functions of sales and marketing, technical support and professional services delivery, while product management, R&D and finance teams remain centralised to support all of the regions.
“Our geographically focused teams will be able to respond more efficiently and collaborate more effectively to solve their customers’ challenges. This strategy also builds a stronger foundation for future growth for our company,” he says.
Printers need to consider four key areas when choosing an MIS system according to John Alden. “The first is time to estimate – how quickly a printer can get an estimate out the door; secondly, time to press – how quickly that estimate can come in and be converted to an order and on the floor; the third consideration is time to dispatch – how quickly the order can be processed in the plant and the job dispatched; and lastly there is the time to cash.
“We can help in those four areas. But overriding, I think it’s the simplicity of the system, the ease of use. You can onboard new employees with our simplified quoting, and you can have somebody generating a very high dollar value quote with limited or no estimating experience.”
Central to printIQ’s philosophy is the understanding that a comprehensive print management system needs to be customised to fit any business’ requirements. “Our people know the various industries and segments in which we work. They understand the process, so we’re much more than just an IT company. We have our own in-house development team so if we don’t have it, we can build it,” stresses John Alden.
Different sectors of the industry have differing requirements, which is why printIQ has developed functionality specifically for digital, flexo, label, offset, packaging, signage and wide format and fulfilment. This means understanding the manufacturing process of each segment and understanding how they market. Is it cost plus? Is it SKU based?
“People price to the market differently. Our systems can handle a lot of different ways of doing that. Fundamentally printers are looking to build their businesses around our platform. So we have to understand what they do, what their costs are, how they price it, and then taking that one step further, how their employees use the system and interact with it,” John Alden observes.
“We have a good amount of label and packaging clients today and we’re learning a lot of where the product is and where we need to take it. We’re seeing that across the board in all three regions.”
It is his belief that in its continuing efforts to gain market share, PrintIQ needs simply to increase the number of printers who consider it as an option when choosing MIS.
“One thing I know in the MIS space: you need to increase your consideration. If we get companies who are in the market for an MIS to consider printIQ, we will win our fair share and achieve our revenue goals. I have all the confidence in the world. Our product is just that good. We’ve definitely caught people’s attention.”
Captions:
printIQ CEO John Alden and ANZ Sales Manager Justin Webber
ANZ General Manager Rachel Davis
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