Every print business uses commercial software. Some print businesses customize that software, and other print businesses build custom software, so there is a wide spectrum of print software models operating in our industry.

In some cases, the printer is the one asking for software feature requests. In other situations, that printer has customers that are requesting feature requests from them. One of the biggest mistakes I see when printers receive software requests from paying print customers is an “automatic yes,” because we do whatever makes the customer happy. This approach is probably workable when customers ask you for special packaging or additional overruns, or other print-related or customer service-related requests tied to print manufacturing. Software is different, and it should be treated differently. Saying yes will get you in trouble, both from a budget standpoint and an unrealistic expectation standpoint.

The first thing you have to understand about software is what level of control you actually have over the features and functionality of the software. If your Print MIS, prepress automation, or web-to-print software is a commercial product used by hundreds of printers, your specific feature request will fall into a large bucket of feature requests. Depending on the priorities of the software vendor, you may or may not ever see your feature request implemented into the solution.