OAD Groep
OAD is the second largest tour operator on the Dutch market. The Internet has radically changed many consumer markets, however, not so much so for the travel industry. Customers still like to look through different brochures. This means that companies in this industry always have printed (paper) catalogues to inform their customers of products.
Key challenge
“In general consumers use both types of media compelling the operators to provide those. As a consequence catalogues have to compete against the Internet in terms of costs and publication time. This is difficult especially when the Internet is a lot more flexible than a catalogue because it is easier to update. When a certain trip or holiday is sold out it can be taken of the Internet whilst one cannot remove it from a printed catalogue. It is extremely difficult to meet the (changing) demands of your customers when you can only print twice a year.”
To see if it was possible to make printed catalogues more flexible and costs efficient OAD decided to seek the help of MultimediaBrains.
Key solution
MultimediaBrains enabled OAD to fully automate their catalog production process by an average of 90%. In addition MultimediaBrains supports the tour operator to digitally hookup pre-press companies to their system. Ensuring that Desk® PMs also manages the processes where it’s only cost effective to automate a major part of the page layout and pre-press is doing the finishing touch. By connecting their existing web CMS to Desk® PMs the internet text could be used as the basic information. Images and logos are handled by Desk® PMs and the Internet pictures which are automatic generated by Desk® PMs, are in turn used by the web CMS.
The calculation system of OAD is also connected to Desk® PMs. Price information is coming into the Desk® PMs through this link and price tables are generated automatically. So at the very last minute price information can be inserted. The processing of pictures, making proofs, and developing certified PDF´s files for printing became easily manageable by a single click. Enabling OAD to bring out catalogues more frequently while having the flexibility to make last minute changes. The solution provides OAD more efficiency in personal communication with their customers as they now can also print client specific travel documents like tickets, vouchers, etc.
Key advantage
Publication resource planning brings great advantages to a company. It shows that everyone is able to reach different customers by selecting the appropriate communication media. The biggest advantage is the elimination of the communication gap between customer and OAD. This enables them to tailor communication to their customer’s needs. This does not only save the company a lot of costs and time but it does the same for the customer as it is easier for them to find right and specific information.
As a result of the system that MultimediaBrains implemented, work on OAD’s marketing department got a lot less hectic due to an evenly spread workload throughout the year. Another big advantage is the fact that the catalogues have a higher quality, based on up to date data, which can be issued in less time with less costs. Leading to better informed customers.
What will Desk® bring them in the future
Even though MultimediaBrains has brought some major advantages to OAD there are still more plans for improvement. In the future it will be possible to respond even quicker to the demands of customers through this system by supporting “Individual Information Orders”. That way a customer can order information tailored to their specific needs. For now, OAD is manually taking care of the ‘tailoring’.
