Bennett Hirsch has 20-years of broad-based marketing experience. He spent 11 years with Federal Express, helping launch a broad range of service initiatives throughout the world. Domestically, Bennett was intimately involved in the introduction of weekend service, money back service guarantees and the strategic development of customer automation. In his final position at FedEx, as international service development marketing manager, Bennett was responsible for developing and bringing to market time definite express freight, priority distribution, broker selection, and re-mail services.

After leaving FedEx, Bennett consulted to the express shipping industry and a number of other large corporate clients in the areas of strategic planning, new product development and positioning, market research and sales force management. Bennett received an MBA from the University of Memphis, and a BA from the State University of New York, at Binghamton.

Below, Bennett tells WhatTheyThink about their business model, coming announcements and their recent reorganization.

Bennett, give our subscribers an overview of NowDocs.

In February 2000, NowDocs, after 18 months of development and customer testing, publicly launched its Internet-based time definite same-day print and delivery service of presentation-quality digitally printed documents to major business markets targeting primarily Global 2000 and other major businesses. At the time it was launched, the company offered delivery in as little as two hours to 13 U.S. locations.

Since then, NowDocs has expanded its same-day service to over 20 markets including international cities London and Toronto. In addition, NowDocs delivers printed documents for next-day arrival to over 200 countries worldwide. Businesses with international operations can upload documents for printing as late as 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard time, and have them digitally printed, bound and delivered in as little as two hours.

Launching new services usually means customers will help in shaping the overall offering. What has your customer feedback been like?

In response to requests from our corporate customers to extend NowDocs browser based and distributed print technology to meet additional business needs, the company has expanded its distribute-and-print infrastructure and digital printing network by offering branded solutions to corporations and alliances, an API that can be integrated into company’s business processes, a software application and hosted ASP for global enterprises and a print and mail distribution service.

Explain the technology used by NowDocs and the advantages over the status quo?

All NowDocs product lines are supported by the firm’s Global Print and Distribution Network (GPAD). GPAD, which is integrated into the firms browser based platform, has the ability based on the characteristics of any customer order (such as type of document, delivery commitment, and destination), to automatically route the order to the correct print fulfillment center and schedules appropriate final delivery.

Core to this technology is NowDocs print preview capability. A customer cannot only preview any document on-line prior its printing and delivery, but they can also review on-line multi-document orders including binding options and tabs. This patent pending technology has allowed NowDocs to expand its service offerings from the initial service available through the Web site to five other strategic product lines.

To date, NowDocs is not aware of any service provider that can provide Global 2000 customers with a comprehensive suite of browser based solutions that can manage internal print networks, route print orders to third party providers, access a same day print and delivery network and provide a worldwide corporate branded print and distribution solution.

We reported last week that NowDocs laid off about 35 employees and was restructuring the business. What exactly has happened?

NowDocs recently reorganized its business to better focus on its core customer base of Global 2000 firms. It’s worth noting that we took this action one quarter into our new fiscal year, a quarter in which we generated 40% more revenue than we did in our first year of operations.

With our business driving towards enterprise solutions, we decided to enhance our overall organizational effectiveness by driving change in three areas:

First, we optimized the number of print locations in the network to 10. Through these strategically placed locations, based throughout North America and Europe, we will be expanding same day coverage to over 100 major world markets later this year.

Second, we integrated Sales and Marketing into one organization. As we continue to deepen the relationships with our large customers, we are placing more and more focus on developing innovative enterprise solutions that require closer coordination between traditional marketing and sales functions. This change has actually given us the ability to increase the size of our professional services and web development groups, two teams that are at the core of integrating customer solutions. A senior executive left the organization in conjunction with these changes.

Third, as our business direction becomes more focused on large, enterprise solutions, we’ve been able to eliminate a number of administrative positions.

There is a perception that high tech companies with Internet based solutions are struggling to survive. However, it appears that companies who have models that help businesses “work” better via the web will have staying power. Do you agree?

We concur that Internet based solutions unto themselves do not provide viable business models. It is those firms that utilize the Internet as a channel to improve current business processes that will be successful. NowDocs participates in a $100 billion print and delivery market. By the way, this is just the U.S. portion of the market. Our entire reason for being is to provide Global 2000 firms with browser based, web enabled and/or distributed print and delivery solutions to improve their business processes.

Can you give specific examples of what problems NowDocs solves?

Large companies have far flung sales organizations that typically receive little administrative support. Sales executives are always running against the clock to get out their proposals and other hard copy follow up to customers and prospects. How many times do we hear about these road warriors spending valuable selling time waiting on line at the local copy shop and then making the mad dash to the express courier so they don’t miss the overnight deadline? NowDocs Special Edition makes business hours actual sales call hours by providing these road warriors with the flexibility to send their proposals and other sales materials from their laptop up until 11:59 p.m. ET for next a.m. delivery.

Global 2000 customers have significant investments in their internal print networks, often in the millions of dollars range. Ask a Global 2000 CFO if their internal print centers are capturing all of the printing they were purchased to handle and the answer will come back a resounding - “No!” Why is that? There is no easy way for all corporate users to access the print shop for their printing needs. NowDocs offers both a software and hosted solution that places NowDocs browser based front-end on the desktop of every employee in the corporation so that everyone has easy access to the internal print network.

Mail is not going away any time soon. Yet, while there are 100’s of billions of time sensitive documents moving through the mail every year, virtually all of it is centrally produced. In other words, the only customers who receive their mail within a couple of days are those who happen to be based close to the single print location. With NowDocs Direct to Mail, a distributed print and mail fulfillment solution, we can electronically route mail to the print and mail center closest to the ultimate recipient, thereby taking days (of float) out of the mail stream.

You have several office locations. What determines where NowDocs expands?

Our current network of 10 print locations is optimized to provide same day service to over 100 major world markets. The decision to open future print centers will be dictated primarily by aggregate destination market demand and specific requirements from our largest customers.

When FedEx launched overnight delivery, people said it would never work because of new technology like the fax machine. Does NowDocs face similar perception hurdles with email and e-signature acceptance?

Having worked at FedEx for 11 years, I regularly heard reports of the firm’s imminent demise due to new technologies such as fax. The reality is that time based businesses with tangible products, whether it is a FedEx sending a medical device cross country or a NowDocs sending a financial prospectus halfway around the globe, thrive when faster and cheaper communications are readily available in the marketplace.

Email is increasing global communications at a rate that would have been incomprehensible just a few short years ago. Yet this growth is not coming at the expense of the printed document as indicated by the strong growth in the sales of high quality paper stocks. We anticipate the acceptance of e-signatures will have a similar positive impact on printed materials.

Give us an example of a typical sales call to a client who wants a complete NowDocs solution - What does it take to get set up?

With NowDocs broad range of enterprise solutions, there are typically several decision-makers and influentials within any given company. NowDocs Global Account Managers (GAMs) are available to personally meet with prospective clients. Since the browser based front-end that drives www.nowdocs.com drives virtually all of our product lines, prospects often "road test" NowDocs Direct site while they work with our GAMs to define their specific service needs. Since our Global 2000 customers typically request various levels of customization, we bring our Professional Services personnel into the vast majority of customer engagements. Actual implementation time for specific customer sites (co-branded, private labeled, IntraPrise, etc.) are typically 30 to 90 days, depending on complexity.

In October, you announced full enterprise solutions. Today, many web based print companies seem to be jumping on board re-working their technology as a full solution. How has it worked for NowDocs?

We have been an enterprise-based company since we launched our Direct site last February. Our actions since we went live in February, 2000, have reinforced our commitment to provide enterprise solutions for Global 2000 customers. Our sales and marketing model has always been driven by direct sales to the Global 2000 customer base. We announced our full enterprise solution within 8 months of our business going live. The company’s recent reorganization was designed to strengthen our Enterprise business focus. We will be officially launching our two newest enterprise solutions, IntraPrise 2.0 and IntraPrise ASP, at the February, 2001, On Demand show .

While many web based print companies seem to be jumping on the "enterprise" train, we are not aware of any other company that can provide Global 2000 customers with a comprehensive suite of browser based solutions that can manage their own internal print networks, route print orders to third party providers, access a same day print and delivery network and provide a worldwide corporate branded print and distribution solution.

Some have said European companies appear slightly more "ready to work with web based solutions" than U.S. clients. What has been NowDocs experience?

We’ve been in Europe for just three quarters, so I think it is premature to compare their readiness to work with web-based solutions versus US clients. What we are seeing, however, is that more and more US based companies are seeing huge time based advantages to distribute electronically across the pond, and then have their important business correspondence printed in Europe and then delivered locally. We have customers who use NowDocs and select postal delivery throughout Europe and receive faster delivery at a fraction of the cost to the old fashioned way of printing in the U.S. and then having an express carrier fly it across the Atlantic.

You currently have a partnership with Staples where users can access Staples’ site and use NowDocs. Will you seek similar alliances?

We will be announcing a series of significant partnerships with recognized brick and mortar firms over the next several months.

With your build up of locations and production facilities, could NowDocs ever expand outside of print management for companies?

Even though NowDocs is just entering its second full year in the market, we are already expanding our service offerings beyond traditional print management. With our core strengths in browser based, web enabled, and distributed digital technology, we expect to continue down the path of providing new, innovative solutions for our Global 2000 customers.

Bennett, you are very gracious and we appreciate your time!