We are often asked to provide our services in a SaaS model, where customers pay as they use the system. But since this would put us in direct competition with our own customers, we obviously can't start with this. What we can do for those prospects, howerer, is point them to one of our existing customers. They often provide services in this way.
Digital Asset Management
An obvious candidate in this regard is Digital Asset Management. Our customers host images on their own servers, and allow end users to search through these images and download them in different resolutions. And of course this is not restricted to images. Complete document management solutions can be created as well.
Web2print applications
The power of InDesign Server (or the DMP FLO Suite PDF templates) can be put online in web2print websites. Our customers typically target large accounts with very specific needs. Stationary supplies are one part (simple business cards, letter heads, etc.), but usually they are added primarily so the end customer doesn't take them somewhere else. The main focus of the web2print solution is typically something with higher volumes and better margins. Weekly promotional brochures, catalogs, point of sales materials, and so on. All of this created online by end users in the interface (and with the business logic) that most suits them.
Marketing Services
More and more of our customers are expanding their services to more marketing oriented solutions. Online tools for their end customers which are not necessarily generating print orders. This might involve the hosting of websites in a content management system, publishing PDF files to flash viewers, hosting prepress workflow solutions, and so on.
Corporate Customers
The main target of the SaaS solutions are the corporate customers. End customers which come to the printing companies with a lot of marketing needs, but often without the internal expertise to set up complex solutions on their own. The printing company does have the critical mass to build up relevant knowledge, and is the ideal partner for the solutions. Depending on the level of expertise at the end customer, the printing company just sets up the initial system, or is also asked to maintain it afterwards (e.g. by adding new content templates to the web2print solution)
Other Printing Companies
But more and more, SaaS services are also offered to other printing companies. The cost of a complete web2print solution including InDesign Server is not always relevant to the use some smaller companies might have for it. But a couple of the functionalities (e.g. Online Proofing of PDF files) might still be very interesting. Several of our customers are setting up services to target their smaller colleagues in this way.
The custom approach
Despite the fact that all of our customers use the same software to provide these services, they can still differentiate enormously. Only a few of them offer out of the box solutions with the DMP FLO Suite. In most cases, they have finetuned the existing functionalities in a way that maximizes their own input. A bigger focus on marketing aspects, on delivery methods, on low cost printing, etc.
Our assistance
And in all of this, we try to support our customers as much as possible. Not only by being there for them with technical expertise and suggestions, but also by offering marketing services where applicable. Going to google and searching for "web2print hosted", for example, will point potential prospects very quickly to our SaaS Partners.