Nothing’s Impossible. Documents arrive at Sir Speedy in virtually
any shape or format, but Sir Speedy’s response is always the same:
“We can handle it.”
Even on a good day, quick printing is a tricky business. Any designer or production editor at Sir Speedy’s nearly 1,000 quick print centers can tell you a story about mismatched fonts or misbegotten files — like the 12-page, 4-color newsletter generated entirely in a customer’s favorite spreadsheet application.
Documents arrive at Sir Speedy in virtually any shape, size, format, medium or condition — it’s a daunting business proposition. But Sir Speedy’s response is always the same: “We can handle it.”
Pixel to Paper
“We’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, so we’re very good at putting ink on paper,” says Walter Kozlov, Director of Development at Sir Speedy, Inc., a quick print franchisor with the world’s largest network of printing and copying centers.
“Nearly everyone in Sir Speedy Corporate uses Macs, which means I can spend less time training new corporate employees and more time in the field helping franchisees.”
Indeed, since the mid-80s, when the company forsook traditional typesetting for electronic publishing on Macs, they’ve become really good at wringing ink from zeroes and ones. Currently, eighty to ninety percent of the documents brought to Sir Speedy franchises are computer-generated.
Because the company persistently hones its technological edge — most recently with an upgrade to Mac OS X — it’s equally well set up for pixels or pages, coming and going. On any given day, the franchises can push as many digital documents as their several hundred thousand business clients can dish through batteries of Power Mac G5s to paper, the Web or anything in between.
Bottom Line Logic
Kozlov, a 17-year veteran of Sir Speedy’s parent company, Franchise Services, Inc., points out that Macs arrived at Sir Speedy before he did, but that their use has broadened considerably since.
“We use Macs at our corporate office for everyday administrative tasks and to create marketing materials for franchisee use,” says Kozlov. “The franchises use the Macs for ‘print for pay.’”
At company headquarters in Mission Viejo, CA, Kozlov wears several hats: managing network infrastructure, including FTP, web and email services; directing software development of intranet applications; and training employees, both at headquarters and in the franchises.
But his most important job is to make his “clients” — the franchisees — more ready to acquire and service their own customers: “In other businesses you have a product and your corporate staff is doing whatever it can to get that product sold,” he says. “In our business, our product is our franchisee. Frankly, if they don’t make money, we don’t make money.”
That bottom line logic serves as well to underscore Kozlov’s technology preferences. “Nearly everyone in Sir Speedy Corporate uses Macs,” he says, “which means I can spend less time training new corporate employees and more time in the field helping franchisees.”
Frontline Support
Walter Kozlov.
“We’ve been doing this for more than
30 years, so we’re very good at putting
ink on paper.”
Because franchise profitability is so critical for corporate success, the company puts its Macs predominantly where its money is — in the field, in the hands of graphic artists and designers. A typical franchise deploys three Power Mac computers and one or more PCs, with the Macs used for creative design work and the PCs for opening and outputting customer-supplied PC files.
The fit, says Kozlov, is natural: “Historically, Apple’s focus has been on the publishing market. They’ve always understood the complexities of desktop publishing, building technologies like ColorSync to assist in reliably reproducing color and AppleScript to ease repetitive tasks, while embracing PostScript to ensure the best possible output quality.”
Easy Migration
Given the direct relationship of uptime to throughput in the quick print business, moving the entire company quickly to Mac OS X, with its promise of enhanced stability, was a no-brainer.
And the changeover at headquarters was quick work. “It was a lot easier to do on the inside because we have a standardized package of applications, and I control that. About three years ago we began testing and learning the new OS. By May of this year we’d replaced our corporate machines with new iMacs and moved everyone to version 10.3. Our transition was painless.”
“Moving to Mac OS X means they don’t crash while producing customers’ files. Every 20 minutes of re-booting counts.”
By far the bigger challenge was migrating the thousand franchise locations, who frequently must run legacy customer files generated from multiple applications in mixed computing environments. While that effort is ongoing, nearly all of the centers have upgraded to Mac OS X, motivated by the reliability of the system and an end to extension and system conflicts.
Upgraded Results
The results of Sir Speedy’s upgrade have more than rewarded the effort. “Both for corporate and for the franchises, Mac OS X has been incredibly stable,” says Kozlov.
Inside corporate headquarters, the new reliability translates to lower costs and less maintenance, freeing Kozlov to spend more quality time with franchisees. “ New hires at corporate who come in from a PC world just latch onto it and say ‘I can learn this, it’s easy.’ From the IT perspective, we have been virus-free for as long as I can remember.”
In the franchises, the upgrade has produced more reliable printing, with easier printer setups, fewer crashes and improved integration between applications. “Moving to Mac OS X means they don’t crash while producing customers’ files,” says Koslov. “Every 20 minutes of re-booting counts.”
Especially useful for the franchises is the ability of Mac OS X to communicate with any printer or workstation, regardless of the operating system, without third-party networking software. “In the past our franchisees had to pay a network consultant to connect their output devices.” says Koslov. “But not today. That’s huge.”
Designer Friendly
For the franchise designers, graphic artists and production editors who wrangle customer files for printing, Mac OS X has delivered substantial benefits. And to the issue of font matching, their most frustrating technical challenge, the OS brings specific relief.
“One problem not addressed by any font management application is the ability to use PC fonts.” says Koslov. “But Mac OS X comes to the rescue. Because Mac OS X accepts every font format without conversion, including PC fonts, we do not have to waste time searching for a Mac compatible version of that obscure TrueType PC font.”
“We love that the PDF technology is built in. If we’re going to certain presses, we get much better output from the Mac. So for a Publisher file, we’ll PDF it out and open it to the Mac because we have better control on the Mac than on the PC.”
Matt Diehl, production manager for Sir Speedy, Orlando, has seen Mac OS X benefits throughout his design and production workflow: “We love that the PDF technology is built in. If we’re going to certain presses, we get much better output from the Mac. So for a Publisher file, we’ll PDF it out and open it to the Mac because we have better control on the Mac than on the PC.”
Stability equals productivity.
“Our Macs rarely crash using Mac
OS X, so our productivity is high.”
From Inline to Online
Although customer demand for traditional printing remains strong, Sir Speedy continues to adjust to a market that increasingly works through the web. Beginning this year, some franchises began offering their customers a complete suite of online business document management services that lets their clients create, edit and reproduce documents on demand, 24/7, from any browser.
“The internet has made a huge impact in our business, and in some cases, even increased the consumption of traditional ink on paper printing,” says Kozlov. “Online ordering is huge. Some of our franchisees are reporting that the majority of their customers are submitting their jobs via the Internet.”
As with their more traditional services, the new online services are finding useful leverage in features of Mac OS X, including ColorSync and built-in PDF capabilities. “Our website has a proofing section where a franchisee can upload a PDF proof with an embedded color profile for the customer so when the customer sees that proof on his monitor it actually represents what will come off the press,” he says.
In the Queue
While completing the rollout of Mac OS X into the franchises, Kozlov is eagerly anticipating Tiger. “I saw the keynote address at the WWDC, and if you tell me that Tiger’s going to make my life that much easier and help our users locate their documents that much faster, I want it now.”
But absent Tiger, Koslov is satisfied that Sir Speedy is pushing pixels to paper with unprecedented efficiency. “With Mac OS X we’re always productive, and in our environment, production is everything.”
