Final Thoughts

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

Vendors are experts on their products. It is your responsibility to understand your unique business procedures, plans, and needs. The best vendors will assist you in the doing this, but it is up to you to prepare and manage your decision process.

LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP

Print MIS selections are rarely buy-and-forget decisions. You should expect to continue to work with your vendor partner over time to enable additional features, acquire new capabilities, and update your system as your business and the technology evolve. A partner whom you find to be responsive, helpful, and easy to work with during the selection cycle will be likely to continue to behave that way throughout the years in your relationship.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Introducing any form of change can be challenging, with impacts far beyond selection and implementation. You will need to face user adoption and acceptance to change old habits, and there is always the pressure of meeting on-going customer needs. We believe that the benefits reaped from your investment will far offset these challenges if you have help.

Setting out well-defined goals, sticking to them, and establishing a team to lead this change will assist you in the process of buying a Print MIS. These will also facilitate a more straightforward implementation as the whole team will already be familiar with the software and the method, and can be proponents to the rest of the organization with their buy-in, expertise, and support.

We hope this eBook helps provide the first step the best Print MIS choice for you and your business. Avanti has been creating products which put our customers first for over 34 years, culminating in Avanti Slingshot, our award-winning, JDF-certified, print management software. And, we’re just getting started.

EIGHT-STEP PROCESS

Understand your needs
List objectives & desired results
Build an evaluation team & plan
Prioritize and verify capabilities
Scope integration needs
Determine your budget
Select a vendor partner
Evaluate the implementation process