Leading franchise helps its locations diversify by providing various services based on Adobe print solutions.

As one of the world’s largest graphic communications franchises, Allegra Network LLC enjoys an enviable vantage point for spotting trends and opportunities in the print industry. “Our job at headquarters is to provide our franchise members with tools, processes, and outsourced services that increase their profits,” says Tim Wood, vice president of technology for Allegra Network.

Founded in 1976 in Michigan, Allegra Network LLC has grown to support more than 600 locations in the United States, Canada, and Japan, and its sales rank in the top 200 among all franchises of any industry worldwide. The franchise includes six leading brands in its printing division—Allegra Print & Imaging, American Speedy Printing, Instant Copy, Insty-Prints, Speedy Printing, and Zippy Print—as well as the Signs Now brand in its signs division. Locations offer full-color printing, graphic design services and electronic publishing, digital color copying, high-speed copying, and online file transfer.

What sets Allegra Network apart is the company’s extraordinary commitment to franchise training, technology implementation, and store profitability. Franchisees are attracted by the company’s Profit Mastery Program, which includes advanced training; an annual benchmarking study for profitability called the Operating Ratio Study; and Performance Groups of about six franchise owners who act like a board of directors, advising each other on business directions and technology adoption.

Transforming craftsmen into marketers
To counteract slowing growth in the print industry, Allegra headquarters is aggressively developing new services and more efficient processes to give its print franchises a competitive edge. One strategy is helping franchises offer more diverse services, both to differentiate themselves and to gain new sources of revenue. “We want to transform print craftsmen into effective marketers as well,” says Wood.

To this end, Allegra headquarters has begun providing outsourced services that its franchises can offer to their customers. One is a web-based service that customers can use to order variable pieces such as business cards, letterhead, forms, brochures, and pocket folders. Headquarters uses software from Printable Technologies to create web-based design templates that can be customized online. Once customers have entered their data, the server instantly generates an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file that they can proof and then submit online for printing. Allegra Network centers perform imposition in-house, and then deliver or ship the finished product to the customer.

“The advantage of online job submission is that the customer actually assists in the production process,” says Wood. This workflow has at least three advantages: Allegra saves many hours by not having to type in the variable information, customers receive immediate proofs instead of having to wait based on the workload at the print center, and the print centers have nearly eliminated errors for these repetitive pieces. “Our previous error rate was 2 per 100 jobs,” Wood says. “Use of Adobe PDF has reduced that by 98%, to 4 per 1,000 jobs.” Practically eliminating reruns has enabled Allegra headquarters to offer the web-based job submission service to its stores for about 10% of the setup costs and 20% of the monthly fee of another leading e-commerce print provider.

Using an Adobe PDF workflow across the Internet
Allegra also takes advantage of Adobe print solutions to increase the profitability of printing jobs that customers design themselves. The franchisees’ regular customers can access Allegra Network’s Connect client (AllegraConnect, AmericanSpeedyConnect, Insty-PrintsConnect, SignsNowConnect), built with Adobe PDF JobReady™ technology at its core, which makes the Connect client appear as a print driver just like any other printer on the customer’s network. After designing a file using Adobe Creative Suite 2, Microsoft Office, or any other application, the customer simply chooses the Print command and selects the Connect client as the print driver. At this point, the Adobe PDF JobReady technology grabs all the fonts and graphics needed to create an encrypted Adobe PDF file that the customer can view and submit over the web for printing. “Margins increase when printers no longer have to spend time correcting problems such as missing fonts and graphics files, or incorrectly specified color files,” says Wood. “For the customer who is not a graphic designer and does not use Adobe Acrobat®, the Adobe PDF JobReady technology helps avoid problem files—and increases store profitability.”

Streamlining print and web design
Allegra recommends that its franchises use Adobe Creative Suite 2 for print design because the applications in that suite generate more reliable Adobe PDF files than other design applications, according to Wood. “Recommending the Adobe Creative Suite 2 is part of our commitment to making our franchises efficient and giving them the tools to avoid as many problems as possible,” he says. The company uses and recommends raster image processors based on the Adobe PostScript® language for the same reason. “Adobe PostScript has been the most reliable page description language for high-resolution output since its introduction in the 1980s,” says Wood, “and we’re looking forward to an even better solution with the Adobe PDF Print Engine.” Print franchises that are entering the large format market—and many are—also appreciate the color management capabilities within Adobe Photoshop® CS2, Illustrator® CS2, and InDesign® CS2 software.

To acquire the tools and training to help franchises offer quality design, Allegra participates in the Adobe Solutions Network and actively encourages its franchises to join as well. Wood says that for Allegra Network’s centers, the main advantages of participating in the Adobe Solutions Network are the training classes, the centers’ listings in the Adobe Partner Finder, the opportunity to set up a booth at Adobe events, and the ability to easily keep up-to-date on all the latest upgrades and beta releases for the Adobe Creative Suite.

Appearing on the horizon: editable Adobe PDF files
Allegra has noticed growing customer demand for Adobe PDF files. Some of its customers want to e-mail surveys that their customers can fill out and return by e-mail, while service providers such as mortgage brokers would like to offer online applications. To meet the demand, Allegra is investigating the use of Adobe LiveCycle™ Designer software to create live Adobe PDF files. Wood expects that software to be the next in a series of innovative Adobe print technologies that will help increase franchises’ profitability. “Since we first began calculating profit ratios in the early ’90s, profits for an average location have grown fivefold,” says Wood. “One factor has been giving franchises the tools to offer new services, such as the web-based tool for ordering versioned pieces and Adobe PDF JobReady.”

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