January / February 2023 43 Tim Carter, director of Commercial Print for Ricoh Graphic Communications purchasing, full document and asset management from one system, CRM for one real-time, consistent view on one screen, digital and traditional scheduling, and advanced inventory management. “Investing and implementing MIS often means embarking on a complex decision process,” Carter says, adding: “Ricoh specialists can assist on this journey and we recommend reviewing the eight-step process beforehand to make sure the business needs and project return on investment (ROI) are met.” The eight-step process includes understanding your needs, listing key objectives, building an evaluation team, determining budget, prioritising essential capabilities, scoping software integration needs, evaluating the implementation process, and selecting a partner. The full breakdown of these considerations can be accessed via https://discover.ricoh.co.uk/story/how-tobuy-print-mis/page/1. Carter continues: “When selecting a partner on this journey, I would recommend a technology vendor that has a proven track record of successful implementations and one that can offer you a solution fit for your business, not off the shelf. “Integration with legacy systems also needs to be assured as are compliance and sustainability of the solution. Additionally, it is critical the system you choose is designed to manage ever-changing job types, applications, run lengths, and turnaround times. The business landscape is shifting to shorter, more impactful print runs, requiring your MIS system to be more agile and flexible in the future.” Completely evolved Tharstern offers a range of MIS software for the print industry with its main product being Tharstern Desktop. This is described by the company as “a comprehensive business workflow solution designed for print professionals wanting to make their company run better and faster.” The MIS is designed for printers that want to speed up print jobs and make them flow throughout each department with little intervention needed, which in turn frees up staff for customer service and faster delivery. On top of this, Tharstern also has a team of print technology experts who are available to guide customers, and the company has great relationships with many vendors and has established integrations and a comprehensive API. Amanda Newman, head of marketing at Tharstern reflects on how the definition of an MIS has evolved over the years: “A print management system, more commonly known as Print MIS, will sit at the heart of your business and help you run all the departments in your print business from one place. This is the most common phrase for referring to the software printing companies use to manage their business. “The term came about back in the 1980s when these software applications did two things only – help printers create estimates and provide management information. Print MIS solutions have completely evolved from these times and do so much more than that now. They are a complete end-to-end solution for everything from sales and marketing to production and invoicing, and everything in between.” Today, an MIS offers so much more than that as highlighted in the examples earlier in this article, and Newman emphasises that due to their all-encompassing nature and integration capabilities, MIS solutions for printers tend to be used as the central hub for a workflow. Tharstern has highlighted the benefits of an MIS for printers as well as produced a short video outlining what an MIS actually is which can both be found via the company’s website, but for the purpose of this article, Newman says the main benefits are: visibility, saving time, and speed. “Without an MIS, print companies can sometimes feel lost when it comes to production data and business performance, but with an MIS the whole company can have access to all the relevant data they need. Having access to all this information can help improve communication with customers,” Newman says. “As production technology continues to advance, bottlenecks are being created in the administrative area of printing companies, pre-production, and the average time spent on jobs is increasing.” With this in mind, Newman says that by introducing an MIS and adding these time-consuming tasks into a streamlined workflow, printers can reduce touchpoints and free up valuable time – a theme that keeps arising! On what to look out for when investing, Newman says to make sure the MIS can integrate with other software and to make sure the print MIS has a roadmap for the MIS. “MIS systems are a long-term investment so it’s important to make sure According to Bizfluent, a functional MIS has five elements. These are timeliness, accuracy, consistency, completeness, and relevance Factoid Tharstern has produced a blog and a short video outlining what an MIS is and its benenfits to printers
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