Speaking at Piras Strategic Print Procurement conference, Piras senior consultant for printing & publishing, Martin Dean, said the object of the survey was to analyse trends and processes used in corporate print purchasing.

The survey, which looked at 12 global companies with turnovers from 135m to 24bn, found that 40% had fixed period contracts, 60% relied on spot purchasing, and the average spend per buyer was 2.6m.

It also found that corporates were planning to introduce more internet auctions for print procurement, take better control of their supply chains and establish more formal benchmarking of suppliers.

Dean said these firms would make more use of print management companies for print procurement.

There will be opportunities for companies to tender and more strategic partnerships established, he said.

Peter Miller, commercial director of TSO, spoke on supply chain integration through online print procurement, and in particular TSOs use of the Noosh
system.

Miller said TSO had made savings of 1m, since adopting Noosh software into TSO Consortia, its extranet supply chain integration system.

Process cost and timings have been reduced by 50%. TSO processed 6,000 jobs worth 15m using Consortia this year alone, he said.

To get the benefits of this sort of system everyone has to come together, but cost savings can be made, he said.

Story by Andy Scott

Picture: Dean - more partnerships