London’s Portobello Road is home to one of the most famous street markets in the world and, for a number of years, among its esoterica emporia and boutique outlets, this retail destination was also home to the eponymous Portobello Press. However, the business, which began trading 28 years ago, soon outgrew its high-street premises and is now located in a 1,400m2 industrial facility on the less trendy, but far more practical, Scrubs Lane a couple of miles further west.

The name remains unchanged, however, as does the boutique approach to business. "We provide a complete service, everything from a run of one to one million," explains operations director Iain Storey. "And we’re happy to tackle the weird and the wonderful too. For example, we sourced 40,000 chillies for one client, followed by 40,000 carpet tiles."
As well as its service, Portobello Press also prides itself on its flexibility of response, with facilities spanning everything from typesetting, through both litho and digital options, to perfect binding.

Front-end upgrade
Last November, to pull all this flexibility into a cohesive front-end, the company installed a new suite of Kodak pre-press products. This centred on Kodak’s Prinergy Evo workflow system and Insite Storefront web-to-print (W2P) software, purchased through Kodak dealer Image2Output.

In terms of the latter, W2P products are obviously plentiful, so it comes as no surprise that Portobello researched these alternative offerings before committing to the Kodak solution. Storet says, however, that Storefront’s simplicity, variable data and online proofing capabilities, and the fact it was JDF ready made the choice relatively straightforward.

The circa £40,000 Evo and Insite Storefront package has been integrated with Portobello’s existing Tharstern MIS, which may have made installation tricky. Not so, says Storey, who pronounces himself "very impressed" with the installation and set-up, especially the smooth integration that ensures, when an order comes in, it magically appears in the Tharstern system.

The Prinergy Evo workflow system marks the company’s first foray into using a workflow, so simplicity was crucial and Storey says the Evo system provides a straightforward process that fulfils that brief. As part of its package Portobello also received four days off-site training, followed by live support as it implemented the workflow and W2P packages in its own environment. It means the company can make the most of what Storey says are Evo’s numerous benefits.

"With Evo we have the ability to import and impose jobs, proof check them and then go through to production so it’s a big benefit. We get a certain amount of management information out of it too," he says.

The company has the option to upgrade to Prinergy Connect in the future, which would provide it with more sophisticated bi-directional job information. Storey admits that it would be nice to have had this in place from the start, but says the choice was made not to include it based on the company’s budget.

That’s not to say he is unhappy with what he is got, since installation both Storefront and Evo have revolutionised the way the company does business – he says Storefront especially has been a great fit for a broad ranging client base.

Different needs
"We are up and running with Storefront and rolling that out to customers on a project basis with individual clients," he reports. "They all have different needs, some require stockholding, some an on-demand print service. It’s a really good system for those sorts of things. The interface is simple and easy to use for anyone used to shopping online, but there’s a powerful set-up behind it. Storefront does exactly what we want, and probably a bit more, we haven’t found its limits yet."

That said, Storey does have some caveats. For starters, he describes the Kodak after-sales service as only as "okay".
"We haven’t been wowed by it," he admits. "I have asked for fixes to some minor issues that haven’t been forthcoming, and some things take longer than I would like. So I would mark it as average."

He adds that password permissions are also an issue within Insite Storefront, reporting that they have also proved a bit of a headache to keep on top of.

"The system is set up so you can give different people different access rights, and there are permissions within permissions within permissions... It’s as complicated as it needs to be for a system like this, but something like an expert worksheet with examples of different permissions scenarios would be helpful, because everyone will use it slightly differently."

Dave McGuiness, digital solutions consultant for Kodak in the UK admits that the password system is indeed quite complex, but that this is a natural result of the sophistication of the system. He claims initial confusion lessens with familiarity and that after a few months most companies get to grips with the system and report positive feedback on their satisfaction and results.

As for the after-care issues, he says:"I’m sorry to hear Portobello is not completely happy with the support and we will look into this and contact them to discuss. We are always open to making improvements."

Despite the need for these improvements, overall Storey is pleased with the flexibility the firm has gained via the package of workflow plus W2P. And he’s happy that the Storefront payment model doesn’t involve transaction charges.

"Kodak charges a monthly support fee, but there are no transaction or click charges. That was appealing as I like things to be simple – click charges could become very expensive if a client with lots of satellite offices rolled this out. So the lack of click was appealing.

"It has given us a flexible online presence. Customers can go online and place an order, and we can go to a customer and say ‘if you find it easier to log on and do it at 8pm then you can’, and that’s very useful. It’s also something we can grow and grow. The system looks good and works well – it’s easy for our customers to operate, and that’s the main thing."
Would Portobello recommend it? "To a competitor, no," quips Storey. "Yes I would recommend it. It does the job. It has already helped us win some contracts and it will continue to do so."

SPECIFICATIONS
Kodak Insite Storefront combines online ordering and purchasing. Users can build customised, branded websites for clients with a variety of pricing engines. It also integrates with Kodak’s Prinergy range of workflow systems for automated production.  
Kodak Prinergy Evo is the entry-level system in Kodak’s Prinergy family of workflow products, and offers a cost-effective professional workflow set-up for printing companies that don’t yet need a full-blown database-driven job management system. It is modular and scalable, and designed to be flexible.
Price
Prinergy Evo: around £23,000 DOC
Insite Storefront: around £21,000 DOC
Contact
Kodak Graphic Communications Group
0845 602 5991 www.graphics.kodak.com

COMPANY PROFILE
Based in west London, Portobello Press began trading in 1983 from premises on the London road of the same name. It soon outgrew its high-street site, though, and the company moved to its present location 20 years ago. The firm employs 28 staff and has sales of circa £3.5m. It services a wide range of clients, from blue-chip corporate clients and charities, to customers requiring one-off jobs. The company offers a wide range of in-house services spanning typesetting and design through to litho and digital print production, and also finishing services. Its services include print and website design, corporate stationery, labels, membership packs including integrated plastic cards, and bespoke sourcing of specialist items.  

Why the system was bought...
The firm wanted to offer its customers the flexibility of being able to order around the clock, while at the same time formalising its own workflow processes with a system that could integrate with both the new web-to-print setup and its existing MIS. Another important factor was having the capability to move to full JDF integration in the longer term.

How it has performed...
Storey says the combination of Prinergy Evo and Insite Storefront has made a big difference to the business, and the benefits have been manifold; providing an additional service offering that has proved a genuine advantage in client pitches, to having the flexibility to customise aspects of the system according to Portobello’s own needs.