Sull Graphics: Integrating Technology for Business Growth

Based in Atlanta, GA, Sull Graphics is a full-service print and marketing services provider, with customers throughout the southeastern U.S. It’s a one-stop shop, offering creative design services, high-end static printing, and complex variable-data printing for one-to-one marketing and personalization.

Sull Graphics has a solid reputation for precision, high quality work coupled with responsive customer service. The award-winning company was founded in 1988 by Keith Sullivan, Mandy Ward, and their father.

The challenge

Sull Graphics was seeing a steadily-increasing volume of work from a loyal customer base asking for a broader range of services. Sull had relied on a print MIS system to automate many parts of the workflow, but the vendor of that system had been acquired, and the new owners had stopped development.

“Our customers have always gotten our very best work, but producing it was much more costly and time-consuming than it needed to be,” says Sullivan. “We were in danger of becoming mired in a process that couldn’t adapt to our growing and changing business.”

Sull Graphics needed to improve the quality of information available about each job—a need shared by virtually every department in the company. The first priority was to reduce the number of costly touchpoints on the shop floor, where inaccurate data was affecting profit margins.

While Sull’s web-to-print solution, MarcomCentral (Booth 238), was handling more volume, it couldn’t be integrated into their existing print MIS system, and became an isolated island of automation that required staff to re-key information into the order management system. As a result, each web-to-print order required review before being invoiced, delaying the time it took to invoice the customer. Additionally, one administrator was tasked with creating pro forma invoices and reviewing cost information before the invoices could be sent to customers. Since re-keying web-to-print data was the weakest link, integrating that touchpoint was key.

Sull Graphics did its homework, and selected Avanti (Booth 635) Slingshot Print MIS to eliminate bottlenecks, minimize touchpoints, and streamline operations across their entire business.

Jobs generated by MarcomCentral are now seamlessly integrated with Avanti Slingshot, and jobs that require estimating can be converted into new orders without re-keying. That alone saved the company as much as 15 hours each week in redundant clerical tasks.

Avanti Slingshot also streamlined invoicing, reducing errors in pro forma invoices by 90%. Sull Graphics’ cash flow showed remarkable improvement, with invoices now issued as soon as the job is shipped. Standardized job ticketing and production processes have given Sull Graphics the ability to take their work to the next level of quality and, with real-time access to a job’s status as it moves through the shop, sales staff can devote more time generating new business.

Avanti Slingshot’s aggregated job information for a particular customer all on one screen gives Sull Graphics a “big picture” understanding of each account. They can identify the profit margin of each customer, and spot trends in growing applications with higher margins.

Like many business owners, Sullivan wears many hats. With the wealth of accurate, reliable information now available from Avanti Slingshot, he can spend more time managing and growing the business. Since implementing Avanti Slingshot, Sull Graphics has moved to a new larger facility, added a new 40-inch press, and expanded their direct mail capabilities.

“Our number one priority is the same as it’s been since day one,” says Sullivan, “and that’s quality. We’ll continue shipping our very best work to our customers and, with Avanti Slingshot, we can do it more quickly, accurately, and profitably.”

At Avanti, our goal is to help you deliver more jobs, in less time, with the confidence in knowing that every aspect of your shop is integrated into one powerful Print MIS platform.