The Leicester-based business said the new agreement would see PaaS offered primarily to Boss reseller members who already broker print as part of their own service offerings.
Haybrooke chief executive John Roche told Printweek: “One of our existing customers is a member of Boss Federation and sits on one of their steering committees. He happened to mention that he used our system and he thought it would be a very good tool for the Boss membership to have access to.
“We were contacted directly by Boss to do a presentation of our [PDQ] system and printing as a service, and discuss the concepts with them so that they could evaluate whether or not it would be a good new service to offer their members.
“Their membership is quite diverse, it includes paper merchants and manufacturers, but there is quite a large number of members who are office and stationery resellers, and quite a number of those resell print as part of what they offer.”
He added: “Boss were very interested in the whole mechanism, especially the environmental credentials where the system calculates the carbon footprint and how much plastic is consumed in a given job.
“Printing as a service, where we offer the carbon neutrality within the construct of the commercial agreement, was so appealing to them and they thought the mechanism itself was a very fair and reliable way to access the print marketplace.
“Straight away this gives us access to a few hundred organisations who are operating in exactly the way we need them to operate as a customer – i.e., they are a trade buyer and reseller – and the potential there for us and Boss in terms of our partnership is huge. We couldn’t be more excited with the opportunity because of the growth potential for printing as a service.”
The Boss Resellers Forum told Printweek that its engagement with Haybrooke and PaaS was “one of several initiatives” that it is recommending for its reseller community.
It commented: “The Boss Resellers Forum is constantly looking for products and services to enable growth and support the future success of the reseller community. We see PaaS as a unique solution to support reseller growth, enabling Boss members to easily and quickly diversify into the print category, or to deliver efficiencies in print buying to those with existing print business.
“Boss advocates the use of sustainable business practices across the industry, so a carbon neutral print solution truly aligns with our values and we believe it will appeal to our members too.”
Boss added there are around 1,300 independent office supplies resellers in the UK.
“Although many are already heavily engaged in the print category, we are facilitating ease of access to PaaS in the hope that we can support those businesses who are looking for new ways to diversify and improve their reach.”
Roche confirmed that – as is the case for other PaaS users – there would be no cost to Boss members or suppliers to use the service. A pricing intelligence module within the PDQ system marginalises suppliers’ prices on the fly, providing a revenue stream for Haybrooke but keeping prices competitive for the customer.
Separately, Roche added Haybrooke has also just agreed a six-month PaaS trial, starting in June, with an unnamed “large trade reseller” that buys and sells £8m worth of print annually.
“Such is the success of printing as a service, we’re currently looking actively for printers who can cope with large volumes of print work, especially those who have clever personalisation tools, for example inkjet personalisation. And if they have in-line perforation and die-cutting facilities, that suits our new large client.”
Haybrooke has recently made two new senior hires, Nick Lee as director of strategic growth and Austin Coyne as head of print services, to support the growth of PaaS.
