Fred Meyer, a division of Kroger, a major Northwestern Retailer, was interested in bringing the production of their catalog, circular design and production process in-house. Before the project started, almost all of the production was being outsourced.
In order to support their new customer loyalty programs, another goal was to integrate data from multiple disparate data systems, including merchandising, sales, inventory, customer rewards program, and their image databank in an effort to automatically publish targeted customer communication programs.
Upon engagement, we did a complete cost and needs analysis to determine whether it was in the best interest of the company to continue to outsource, bring it inside or a combination of both. In addition to the SPM (Sales Promotion and Marketing) department, they had an in-plant print production facility that was underutilized. It was determined that bringing the data driven production in house was optimal. We did system and process development, as well as employee training to support the design and composition of the documents and capital investment in the exiting in-plant to facilitate the print production and distribution. The high volume marketing print and newspaper inserts would continue to be outsourced.
We guided them through the research of requirements, creation of design and specification, RFP creation and evaluation, and the ultimate implementation. Completion of this phase of the project resulted in a reduction of 40% of the production cycle time, streamlined communications, and initial savings of over $4M for the first year.