FULL STORY
Quark has announced that the brand Peugeot, brand of the constructor PSA Peugeot Citroën, has chosen to integrate Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution, Quark's dynamic publishing platform, in order to optimise its catalogue production process in 15 countries, representing in excess of 250 publications per year.
Protecting brand integrity and meeting corporate design guidelines while maintaining complete control over the production and communication process are strategic challenges for global organisations. For a company like Peugeot, these challenges are critical in an economic climate where they must reduce costs while improving the organisation’s competitiveness.
For Anne Fenninger, Peugeot's Editions, Multimedia and Internet manager, the evidence was clear, ‘We had previously used a workflow tool which proved to be obsolete since it did not suit our needs. We also needed simultaneously to handle multiple factors such as ever shorter deadlines to complete projects, requests from countries which were not managed both from a creative and budgetary point of view, the increase in demand for e-brochures or high definition PDFs from some countries where Peugeot is present. In addition to this, we also needed to reduce costs and rationalise communication media in order to improve control.’
More than 250 catalogues in 15 countries
The car manufacturer undertook a comprehensive strategic review to implement a collaborative platform with the objective of using a single solution to handle the entire workflow, from layout design by the agency, based in London, to the final print and e-brochure files. Their key goals were to save time in communications between the different parties, reduce errors, improve brand control, remove costs in the design and production chain, generate high definition PDFs and electronic versions of catalogues, and at the same time, to extend the list of countries using the solution.
‘Currently, we produce 26 catalogues for 15 countries*, which means managing between 250 and 350 catalogue projects each year in multiple languages.’ said Fenninger, who is in charge of managing the manufacturer's catalogues and printed publications, including books about the brand, printed direct marketing materials, as well as Web strategies.
The choice of Quark DPS
Peugeot’s primary requirements for a new solution were to increase reliability, reduce costs, and publish print content on the Web with flipbook functionality. ‘We researched what was available, favoring turnkey solutions, but we quickly turned to Quark, whose solution was the closest to our needs in terms of adaptability and flexibility,’ explains Anne Fenninger. ‘We had the opportunity to meet experts at Quark who listened to us, understood our aims, and provided us with a suitable solution.’ Quark joined forces with systems integrator Stepnet who first conceived and then built the application as part of Quark’s dynamic publishing solution and subsequently carried out project-specific developments.
The implementation of Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution (Quark DPS) at Peugeot leverages Quark's expertise in dynamic publishing to provide an online editorial platform that contains an international master for each vehicle model, including copy blocks and images, which each country can edit using predefined design rules: ability to modify photos, direct content authoring, correction of figures in tables, etc. The solution also manages schedule monitoring, with the triggering of alerts to report any delays by a country compared to printed catalogue delivery target schedules, and prepress printing compliance using Quark’s Job Jackets technology. ‘Furthermore, the platform includes a layout history feature for improved control of the production chain and offers the ability to export to dynamic digital formats or, as needed, high and low definition PDFs. The fact that Quark DPS handles both QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign files in a single system was also key to our decision to use Quark DPS.’ Said Fenninger.
Implementation of Quark DPS was straight-forward for Peugeot’s users, requiring a minimum amount of training. Stepnet was also delighted with the rapid implementation. ‘The Peugeot teams quickly became comfortable with the solution,’ recalled Jean-Paul Rigal, CEO at Stepnet. ‘We trained three types of users: first the communications department teams at Peugeot's corporate headquarters, then the subsidiaries and, finally, the prepress partners and agencies.’ To this end, Stepnet provided around forty short video clips, in French and English, to make the learning experience more interactive. Finally, Stepnet hosts the solution for Peugeot, in partnership with COLT, enabling excellent performance, global availability and the best possible support.
35 per cent prepress savings
The editorial platform has been in production since the beginning of 2010 and currently supports Peugeot operations in 15 countries. ‘Our aim is to rapidly include six more territories (Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) and, over time, all countries where our brand is represented so as to use a single dynamic publishing solution globally and enable all regions to benefit from it.’
While it is still too early to determine how much can be saved with the implementation of Quark DPS, Peugeot has already estimated cost savings of 35 per cent on prepress alone. For Gildas Duval, sales director for Quark Southern Europe, ‘Peugeot's choice to implement an integrated dynamic publishing platform validates Quark’s strategic investment and focus on dynamic publishing. By offering, within a single environment, such globally established and recognised products as QuarkXPress, QuarkXPress Server and Quark Publishing System with the Quark Portal Framework, Quark has been able to anticipate and support developments in business sectors undergoing significant change. In conjunction with systems integrators such as Stepnet, Quark provides large corporate Marcom departments with the tools they need to reduce their costs, streamline their operations, improve compliance with their branding and design guidelines, and deliver fresher, more accurate information to their customers in all the print and digital formats they desire.’
* : France, Germany, Great-Britain, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Ireland.
To find out more about Quark’s dynamic publishing solutions including the one deployed for PSA, please e-mail solutionseu@quark.com or visit: dynamicpublishing.quark.com/EN/contact_us.html to locate a dynamic publishing expert near you.
© Graphic Repro On-line, 10 March 2010.
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