The system, which has been implemented at the St Austell, Cornwall-based firm’s 650sqm premises over the past few months, is said to streamline the process of designing and ordering printed collateral by storing everything in one central and secure portal, helping businesses to control their brand and budget more effectively.
Nationwide said the investment will improve efficiency for existing customers and help it to reach new markets, particularly businesses in the travel and leisure sectors including hotel and restaurant chains.
The firm is an existing Ricoh customer – last year it installed a Ricoh Pro C7100 to run alongside existing kit from the manufacturer.
Nationwide Print managing director Julian Hocking said: “This system is good for multiple locations and different buyers. Everything is all there so customers don’t have to find the artwork and the quantities would already be there too.
“You can set the amount people are allowed to order, so they wouldn’t over order and can’t under order, and they also get the most economical prices.
“There are editable and static parts to it but you’re only allowed to edit certain areas – so some people can’t change certain things that they might like to change if this means it goes off brand.”
Nationwide customer St Austell Brewery is already exploring the capabilities of the system, which links to the company’s digital printers and significantly reduces manual handling between client orders and final print.
“There are a lot of options on the system that you can use to save the customer huge amounts of time, which is the idea behind it – the whole point of anyone’s job is to make their customers’ lives easier,” said Hocking.
“It offers far more than just a business-to-consumer web-to-print system, though it can do that if need be. But it’s far more sophisticated than that and you can order other things through it as well as print – it can be a complete asset management software.”
He added: “Innovative digitisation will allow us to expand, employing more people and upskilling our workforce, contributing to Cornwall’s future economic growth.”
Nationwide Print serves international brands including Armani and Rolex as well as the Eden Project, Cornwall Council and a number of other local organisations.
The 16-staff firm was named SME of the Year at the 2014 PrintWeek Awards and was highly commended in 2016.
The company has been in family ownership since the mid-1930s and under Hocking’s leadership since 1998. It prides itself on its green credentials and uses vegetable-based inks and power from its solar roof, which was installed in 2011 and added to in 2015.
