Colin Richards // Colin Richard has almost 40 years experience in the IT industry, with the last 25 years spent in the high volume output generation and management. Starting as a mainframe programmer, now a company owner, with a wide range of skills, expertise and knowledge.
During the eighties he sold SAR and Express Delivery for the UK Distributor and in 1987 he formed his own company selling and supporting a variety of the software products including the RSD product range of WSF2 and ERD (now known as EOS and Folders).
In 1998, Colin formed Docuplus which primarily provided high quality advice, consultancy and document development services for the high volume document creation environment. In recent years, Docuplus has expanded its portfolio to provide a range of software products to complement its services. This includes forming a close working relationship with FIS, a leading software and services company in the high volume output marketplace, distributing and supporting their CSF Suite of products throughout the UK.
Colin is an expert on, and advocate of, excellent TransPromo communications and the software and services required to achieve them. His latest project is to champion the use of Quick Response (QR) codes – he is a passionate believer that these will transform communications in the future. To this end, Docuplus partners Crawford Technologies and offers their QR Express software to help organisations implement this exciting development in the UK and Ireland.
Welcome to my blog about all things related to improving communications for customers (and probably a few unrelated matters as well).
I'm the MD of Docuplus - for all the information on who we are, have a look at our website www.docuplus.com.
Just back from the FIS CSF User group in Florida. Feeling a bit travel weary but fired up by the launch of Designer Intuition. There has been so much interest in it already. Personalisation of documents is definitely a must for organisations in this competitive market place.
I visited the Xplor conference as part of my trip to Florida and was impressed by a presentation on marketing across all media. Finally it seems as if people are thinking 'outside the box' when it comes to communicating with customers - such as the use of QR codes, which, I was pleased to see, were literally on everyone at Xplor.
The number of consumers searching for retail information on mobile devices more than trebled in the first quarter of the year, according to Marketing Week, While this doesn't surprise me, as the smartphone is an essential accessory these days, I do admire people's persistence in trying to search for anything on websites designed for pcs not phones, or in entering details onto order forms that appear in 4 point size typeface.However, it does hearten me as I'm sure it is only a matter of time before QR codes start appearing on billboards and in magazines allowing customers to scan with their smart phone and go straight to the relevant page or offer.
The latest stats on QR codes makes interesting reading – seems they are gaining popularity in the UK - ranking second after the USA in terms of growth. However interestingly the research also shows that statements and bills do not even feature on the list of places where users saw QR codes. Seems like a big gap in the market(ing) to me. And the solution is so simple e.g. check out QR Express software from Crawford Technologies.
It is easy to see that the print industry has been suffering recently with, very sadly, a spate of printers going into administration. Those who remain definitely need to exploit every opportunity to stay competitive. Including ensuring that clients can make changes to documents at short notice. Not something that is easy to offer if you are relying on comparing documents by eye alone. If you want to see what I mean, try our Spot the Difference challenge. Even if you think you are good at proofreading, it's hard to do. Around the office the maximum number of changes between the two documents spotted by eye is 2.. and some of those people pride themselves on their ability to spot discrepancies. Can you do better? If not, ask for a copy of the report when FasTest is used to compare the two. You may be surprised - and I guarantee the FasTest document testing software can find all those changes far faster than you ever could...
Made it through the ash cloud to Dubai to the FIS Global Banking Perspectives Conference which starts today.
I'm particularly interested in the 'Turning business communications into marketing opportunities' with CSF® segment. I just hope the ash stays away so I can get back!
The FIS Global conference is providing me with an amazing insight into the power and penetration of the mobile/smartphone into daily life. For example, in Kenya only 3.5m people have bank accounts but 8.5m people have mobile phones. More information from Brett King, author of Bank 2.0 includes another interesting fact - in Kenya 13.5 million people have an account with Safaricom which allows them to SMS money to another party. Safaricom is a telecom company! It seems Kenya is leading the way in mobile banking.
I've also heard about the app for your smartphone that allows you to go into any book shop, scan a book's barcode and receive an offer from Amazon instead, purchase the book online and get it delivered in 3 days. This, I'm sure, will be completely routine for all savvy retailers, for all sorts of goods, in a very short time. Another example -in a DIESEL store you can picture yourself in the store trying on something and send via facebook to friends to gain their opinion as to whether it suits you or not. DIESEL noticed that this is what customers were doing themselves so they’ve responded by providing the facility in store.
The conference is convinced, as am I, that the smartphone will be the standard financial transaction device in the foreseeable future. The “Brick” to “Click” revolution is here today.
Consequently, electronic scanning and QR codes in particular are attracting more attention than ever.. and rightly so.
Some interesting news from our partner FIS - the world’s largest provider of banking and payments technology is expanding its interests still further. It is to manage the UK Post Office’s new prepaid travel card, the Travel Money Card Plus.
Preparations are in full swing for the Docuplus Conference on the 5th October 2011 at the London Marriott County Hall (a location that has one of the best views in London!) With the current pace of change in customer communications, allied with tough economic times, we think our theme ‘How to benefit from the Changing Landscape of Customer Communications’ is of great benefit to organisations trying to communicate in a way that keeps their current customers and helps gain new ones, without breaking the bank. With that in mind, I’m satisfied that our agenda really does address this topic in a compelling, practical and interesting way. So attendees will only have time to enjoys the views during breaks.
I’m personally looking forward to hearing how Rory Staunton from Strategy Partners answers the question ‘Next Generation Output Management: What is Safe and Sexy and What is Downright Stupid?’, as well as Nigel Cliffe, from Cliffe Associates on ‘The Power of Social Networks and why Digital Asset Management is Essential’. There’s much more, so take a look at the full agenda. If you’d like to join us, then register now as places really are limited, and we’ve already had a lot of interest.
This key event in the document processing calendar is closely followed by another as Docuplus’ Partner FIS is holding a CSF Conference on the 6th October in the same location. FIS will be looking at ‘What’s New in CSF Designer’ and ‘Interactive Documents with CSF Intuition’, amongst other subjects. Even if you are not a CSF User you should attend this event if you are interested in streamlining both off and online communications throughout your organisation. And if you want to give all parts of your company the power to individually personalise client documents, whilst retaining central control, you definitely need to check out CSF Intuition.
