Case Studies
Print Management
Centralized, Individualized e–Procurement
The Situation
When Superior Business Solutions set out to construct a Corporate Kiosk—an e-procurement web site—for the Goodrich Corporation, the international aerospace and industrial enterprise company, it seemed a straightforward proposition. Goodrich wanted individual business units to be able to order business cards, thank you cards, letterhead, personalized executive letterhead, and envelopes online.
This would allow the company to standardize those materials, making sure they all met Goodrich’s corporate identity norms. This was especially important, given the company’s recent rebranding strategies: Goodrich had only recently dropped the BF that had been part of its name, a relic of the company’s days as a tire manufacturer (the BF Goodrich brand is now owned by Michelin).
Another objective of going online was to make stationery much easier—and much more economical—to revise, proof, and order. (Need a new business card? Simply log on, fill in the employee’s name, specify quantity, and hit send.)
What had originally been envisioned was a single, central corporate web site. Problem was, Goodrich has a thoroughly decentralized corporate structure, with more than 30 divisions operating as independent stand-alone profit centers.
The challenge was to reap the benefits of centralized, online print-on-demand, while accommodating the decentralization of the corporate structure.
“We were looking for a supplier who could maintain control over our corporate identity standards,” says Goodrich Director of Supply Management John Foulk. That’s where Superior Business Solutions and Corporate Kiosk came in.
The Superior Business Solution
“The good news,” says Superior Business Solutions’ Larry Haraburda, “is that the Corporate Kiosk technology is so flexible that we could replicate the master web site over and over again, customizing each new one for a different business unit, including the billing function.”
Superior Business Solutions was able to give each Goodrich business unit its own private Corporate Kiosk. That means each unit maintains the confidentiality of its information and responsibility for its own costs. In short, Superior Business Solutions was able to provide Goodrich with the kind of centralized control over decentralized activities that it was looking for.
The solution was straightforward: the stationery templates or digital masters originate with corporate; the specifics, with the individual business unit. Once the digital master—for example, a letterhead design or business card layout—is laid out by a Goodrich art director to exact corporate identity specifications and installed online, not only is uniformity assured but individual business units can maintain their privacy and track their expenses.
The Result
According to Foulk, “Superior Business Solutions was more than accommodating and very resourceful.”
At first there was a flurry of activity, partly because new materials that reflected the company’s rebranding were needed across the board. But, since then, things have been quiet, as they should be. The system is “up and running well,” Foulk says.
“Ordering stationery on the Goodrich Web site [using Corporate Kiosk],” Foulk says, “saves 10 to 25 percent and even more in some circumstances.”
Superior Business Solutions is now in the process of extending the capabilities of the Goodrich Corporate Kiosk, enabling Goodrich units to order not only standard office items, but forms, labels, print-on-demand white papers, and instruction manuals as well.
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