For a major project to succeed requires the backing of the person in charge. Craig Dunsford is CEO Printing across IPMG with the ultimate responsibility for the performance of the business. Patrick Howard asked him how the Technique transition went.
Patrick Howard. What were management’s expectations about moving to a company-wide MIS platform and how has it worked out?
Craig Dunsford. We wanted more visibility across sites to deal with peaks efficiently and so offer better service to our clients. The main benefit is we now have a tool to link the businesses across a common platform and start to share and benchmark. We have some great talent, skill, experience and ideas across each of the print companies and we can now start to share this with each other.
PH. Changing MIS is a major undertaking for any company, especially one IPMG’s size; is this part of a continuing strategy?
CD. In the next stage we’ll be working with other users from around the world to push further development and to build on the foundation we have laid. We hope to continue to gain efficiencies for ourselves and our customers.
PH. How important is an in-house IT department for a company the size of IPMG?
CD. An excellent in-house IT department is critical for us and I’m glad we have one. We have only recently restructured IT within the print divisions and so far so good. We have always had some great IT departments across each of our sites but bringing them together under Chris has seen us benefit by sharing the knowledge and expertise across all sites.
PH. What was the level of buy-in from staff during the changeover?
CD. We are very fortunate that the project management team are not just good technically, but good with people, which made a huge difference for us. As with any change, buy-in is critical. The team charged with implementation had senior management support from the beginning and we continued to encourage ownership as we went. IT don’t own the project; the business does.
PH. How do you feel about EFI and have you had any discussions with them about the continued development of Technique?
CD. We certainly had some challenges during implementation as the change in ownership from Technique to EFI happened soon after we signed. It obviously took some time to settle things down as we were within a partnership that involved three business going through change. We have discussed ongoing development and we are confident this will continue, particularly as the user group continues to grow and the product is now being sold in more and more regions around the world.