London, United Kingdom and Barcelona, Spain; 3 October 2007 - PrintSoft, a business of Australia Post, announced today the on-site contract signings at Post Expo 2007 of premier UK output and fulfillment service providers Inkfish Services Limited and FCS Lasermail. As a result of today's signings, both firms will operate DeskDirect Global output centers and offer DeskDirect Global services to their UK clients. Each firm will handle the output and fulfillment of DeskDirect Global mail destined for ultimate delivery in their local vicinities. Both firms also plan to offer DeskDirect Global services to their UK clients providing immediate benefits in efficient outsourcing of print and mailing for corporate correspondence, both locally and internationally.
DeskDirect Global takes mail via electronic upload from anywhere in the world and routes it for output and fulfillment to a suitable production facility, as close as possible to the point of delivery. Users of the service can submit single letters or batch letter jobs for mailing directly from their desktops via print driver or automated business process. DeskDirect Global takes it from there, aggregating mail on its central servers, sorting, splitting, and distributing it through the network, so that it reaches local output and fulfillment centers as production-ready, presorted jobs ready to print and mail. DeskDirect Global manages all aspects of the service, including paper specifications, address formatting, and postal considerations, even for international mail jobs, so that the user is assured that the resulting mail meets their specifications and is optimized for local postal delivery.
The DeskDirect Global service, while operated by PrintSoft, depends on a network of both mail providers, who offer DeskDirect Global services to their corporate clients, and accredited output and fulfillment centers, where mail routed through the network is ultimately printed and posted. For this reason, PrintSoft is partnering only with mail service providers and output and fulfillment service companies that have both the appropriate output and fulfillment capabilities and also meet rigorous standards for service, quality and security.
"DeskDirect Global is highly important and strategic to PrintSoft," says Mark Worsley, PrintSoft CEO. "So we are keen to remain vigilant in our network expansion process, securing agreements with only those strategically-located output and fulfillment centers that demonstrate exceptional service qualities, as do both Inkfish Services Limited and FCS Lasermail. Additionally, as mail service providers with a reputation for providing high-quality, cost-effective business services to their clients, we are extremely pleased to have Inkfish and FCS Lasermail offering DeskDirect Global services to their clients."
"The immediate benefit to us of adopting DeskDirect Global is the ability to offer broader services to our customers, especially those where a lot of desktop mail is being produced," comments Gary Hazlehurst, Technical Sales Manager for FCS Lasermail. "These sorts of operations are coming under more and more pressure these days to be productive. With DeskDirect Global, we can handle this departmental print and mail, saving them time and money. One existing customer we have is currently sending over 5,000 letters per day out of the company that have been printed on departmental and desktop printers. They know this is not cost-effective and they are also concerned about the low quality of the print and lack of adherence to corporate standards. When we approached this company with information about the service we could offer to solve their desktop mail concerns, they immediately saw this as a huge advantage."
Jason Langford-Brown, Client Services Director for Inkfish says: "In offering DeskDirect Global service to our clients we can offer not only the benefit of consolidating large volumes of desktop mail for production, but also the benefit of global reach. Many of our UK-based clients have a global presence. With DeskDirect Global, we can offer these clients centralized control of mail production while also giving the benefits of printing and mailing in the destination country, including faster delivery, reduced costs and reduced environmental impact."
DeskDirect Global offers enormous "green" benefits in reducing the carbon footprint of printed and delivered mail. By moving print and mail production away from desktop and departmental printers and into efficient high-speed production facilities, ink and toner cartridge use can be significantly reduced. In addition, as a hybrid mail network service, DeskDirect Global eliminates the need for long-haul transport and logistics, resulting in an enormous reduction in carbon emissions.
"Environmental concerns are a big issue for our clients today," comments Inkfish's Langford-Brown. "To position ourselves for growth, we are addressing these concerns head-on and DeskDirect Global is central to this strategy."
With agreements now in place, Inkfish Services and FCS Lasermail are both positioned to offer DeskDirect Global services to their clients on an immediate basis. As DeskDirect output and fulfillment centers, they will also be immediately linked in to provide local UK output and fulfillment for DeskDirect Global mail service providers in other parts of the world.