Cary Sherburne:  Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com, and I’m here with Dan Horkan who is owner of PreCycled Commercial Printers in Brewster, New York.  Welcome.

Dan Horkan:  Thank you.  Nice to be here.  

Cary Sherburne:  I’d be interested in, I understand that you started out as kind of a broker and now you do a lot of digital printing in-house and web to print solutions and so on, I’m interested in hearing about, you know, a couple of examples of customers where you’ve – where those tools have allowed you to bring in new business and grow that business without geographical restrictions.  

Dan Horkan:  Well, we’ve had a few cases of that and probably the ones that comes to mind particularly would be some business cards where we had a customer who was traditionally having their business cards printed offset and they were using a particular red.  And whenever it was printed, it always varied slightly because of the temperature because of the paper, because of the pressman or how late they were out that night.  And we moved it to a digital device which enabled us to control the color and were able to get the consistent color throughout the run and from day to day and week to week, so that all of their representative’s business cards looked the same and we distribute them on a national basis.  And the other thing that helped us secure the job was with the digital equipment we have to turn the jobs around much quicker, whereas a lot of times in the past, they were waiting a long time for the press to be freed up so they could get that red color in there; for us it’s just kind of a point and click and away we go and we can have the cards in the same day or the next day, certainly.  

Cary Sherburne:  So they just from wherever they are in the country, they just come online and if they  need to update the card they do that and then they order it and boom, you…

Dan Horkan:  Correct.  They can enter our server from wherever they are with… as long as they have a computer.  And they enter their data for their name, their title, their phone number and everything is standardized and shows up in the right font, in the right position on the card and they see an instant proof right on their screen as soon as they click ‘Enter.’  And once they approve it, which is usually right away, then we get a production file and it typically goes out within 24 hours, it’s on route to them.  And if they’re in a rush for it, we can send it Fed Ex, if they just want it sent ground, we can send it ground.  

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.  And can you give me another example of another customer you’ve been able to eliminate the geographic restrictions?  

Dan Horkan:  We have another large customer out of Houston, which is quite far from our operation.  And they also do a lot of distribution on a national basis.  They have reps throughout the country and they send us orders through our online ordering system.  And we get the orders, we print the items as they need them, everything is printed on demand so that we don’t have a large…

Cary Sherburne:  Inventory…

Dan Horkan:  Large inventory that becomes obsolete because every year the data changes.  So they order the… they enter the orders online, we print them on demand, and send them out the same or next day again.  

Cary Sherburne:  And how long have you had your web to print solution in place?  

Dan Horkan:  Probably in the neighborhood of six or seven years.  

Cary Sherburne:  And then how did you get that customer from way down there in Houston?  

Dan Horkan:  Through a local relationship.  They were a spin-off of a local company that was next to us and we had some contacts with the executives who made an introduction for us and we were able to, with our digital equipment, solve a lot of their problems and helped them move forward.  

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.  You know, it’s interesting to me how few, well, how low the penetration really is for web to print.  I mean, it’s been around for a long time and there’s some pretty affordable and sophisticated systems out there, but a lot of printers haven’t made that move yet.  Why do you think that is?  

Dan Horkan:  I can’t under… I can’t explain that because for me it was… it was a no-brainer.  It seemed so simple.  We certainly had the need and we saw an opportunity that would be created by it and our customers love it, and it really simplifies the whole ordering process.  And the fact is, you know, typically you’d have a lot of issues with items being printed wrong or with wrong data, and when you do the web to print solution the customer sees the proof right on the screen.  And if there’s an issue of it being wrong, it’s their issue, and if they need us to do it again, well, they have to pay again.  And so it’s been a big help to us.  

Cary Sherburne:  It also cuts down on your costs to produce the job, right, because less of your administrative time, they’re basically doing the work.  

Dan Horkan:  They’re basically doing the work and we get a production file.  We don’t have to do any layout or set up or imposition or… we get a production file right off of the server and send it right to the printer.  

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.  Well, congratulations.  

Dan Horkan:  Thank you.  

Cary Sherburne:  Nice to meet you.  

Dan Horkan:  Thank you very much.