How did Avanti help Square One overcome multiple issues and return to profitability?

Square One Direct, a marketing communications provider in New Jersey, is a great example of how an effective Print MIS system can turn around the fortunes of a printing business. 

The company faced a frustrating challenge. Sales were growing nicely, but profitability was declining, and company executives couldn’t identify the causes of this situation because they lacked appropriate and relevant data about their operations. 

For years, Square One functioned with a home-grown MIS system that relied largely on Excel spreadsheets. But once sales hit the $8 million mark, the system became inadequate for tracking the growing complexity of the business, leaving executives with no clear path for resolving their problems and setting the company on a path to profitability. 

Specifically, Square One needed to estimate jobs quickly and accurately, identify profitable work and cost factors for each job, implement consistent planning practices, reduce human errors, and produce jobs more efficiently 

They knew they needed a better solution, and after a year drilling down into each department and assessing MIS systems, executives implemented Avanti Slingshot. The results speak for themselves. 

Jill Townsend, partner at Square One Direct, tells us that she and her team realized returns on their investment in about six months. They now capture data that is complete, detailed and accurate; errors arising from miscommunication are down; executives have a precise handle on the profitability of every project they handle; and producing fast and accurate estimates has generated more sales. 

Most importantly, overall sales have jumped more than 10% and profitability has grown. 

“In the last six months of 2018, as challenging as it was with all we took on, we saw profit and sales growth. That would not have been the case if we had continued with our old system – we would’ve been in decline,” says Townsend.

Print MIS Case Study

This case study details how implementing Avanti Slingshot Print MIS helped Square One overcome multiple issues to return to profitability, including:

• Poor visibility of cost factors on a job-by-job basis
• Poor identification of profitable from unprofitable projects
• Lack of project planning
• Lack of accountability and consistency
• Costing every project as a clean-sheet design in a system which allowed staff to enter their own numbers
• Non-existent links between cost and price did not exist •
• Routine mistakes in manufacturing and purchasing due to human errors, inaccuracies, and poor organization of notes and instructions

Avanti Slingshot Print MIS Solutions

To solve its problems, Square One chose Avanti Slingshot Print MIS. Returns on their investment were realized almost immediately, including:

• Complete, detailed and accurate captured data
• Reduction in errors arising from miscommunications
• Introduction of profitability-based decision on every project
• Fast, accurate, and consistent estimates resulting in higher sales
• More production from the same number of staff

Advice for Printers Implementing Avanti Slingshot Print MIS

In this MIS case study, Jill Townsend, a partner in Square One Direct has some sage advice for others considering a print MIS system:

• It’s software. Detailed information is required from the beginning in order to see the benefits
• Be willing to change. Automating what you’ve always done won’t help. Work with the system, not against it
• Change will impact everyone. Involve everyone in the planning, implementation, and use of the new system
• Communicate. When people understand the benefits they will understand the reasons for change

Avanti Print MIS Links

Here is a link to this Avanti Slingshot print MIS case study.

Here is a link to the Avanti Slingshot print MIS home page.

For more information call 1-800-482-2908 or email AskAvanti@avantisystems.com