Case Studies
Georges France Photography
Georges Frances Photography ("GFP") is one of Australia's largest photography groups, incorporating some of Australia's best known studio and event photography brands. It has 13 studios throughout Australia with more than 300 staff. GFP's core business is providing a wide range of professional photographic portrait services for families, special events and occasions, such as graduations and class photography.
GFP first engaged Ignia to replace a legacy DOS-based business system that no longer met its needs. At this time, GFP employed manual paper-based methods for most of its processes. Though it was aware that migrating to digital photography offered potential benefits, GFP continued to use film in its operations. Maintaining a library of negatives placed great demands on storage, as well as making filing and retrieval time-consuming and tedious.
Over a period of three years, Ignia has worked with GFP to develop an all-of-business suite supporting new business processes, including the adoption of digital photography and automated workflows.
The end result has transformed the way GFP does business, allowing it to eliminate manual handling and dated processes. As well as cutting costs dramatically, these changes have allowed GFP to provide its customers with a more responsive and flexible service.
Studio Booking Module
Generating studio bookings through telephone sales to existing customers is a significant source of business for GFP. The previous system was totally paper-based and inherently inefficient. For example, lists of phone bookings made around Australia had to be faxed to studios several times daily so that their diaries could be updated. The need to streamline the workflow made the development of an electronic system a high priority.
Ignia's Studio Booking Module tracks bookings Australia-wide and displays them graphically with updates in real time. It also features a call list generator that prioritises prospects who are more likely to make bookings, based on a range of market factors.
This approach requires comprehensive data on previous customer history, which was not available in the paper-based manual system. The detailed information is visible to sales operators, enabling them to make a more informed presentation to the prospect, as well as allowing operators to prioritise higher quality prospects. These factors combine to improve telephone sales performance.
The diary system provides each studio with total visibility of its bookings schedule. As these slots approach, they are assigned a higher sales priority, with call lists automatically updated to include prospects living in areas served by studios seeking more bookings. This provides a much more even level of bookings over time.
This module offers management a number of extremely important business benefits. Whereas sales success could previously only be measured by the number of bookings, each operator's performance can now be measured by the revenue generated by each studio booking. This has provided GFP with valuable objective data about which elements of its marketing initiatives offer the greatest return. In addition, there is far better real time visibility of bookings across the group.
The Studio Booking Module includes a range of other high value benefits, including:
- Automatic generation of booking confirmation emails and phone call lists.
- An intelligent addressing tool that validates customer addresses for ongoing correspondence, including an Australia Post barcode for discounted product delivery.
- The ability to outsource telephone sales activities.
Image Capture and Point Of Sale Module
This module complements the Studio Booking Module to streamline the entire production workflow. It provides end-to-end automation, from capturing the digital images (shot either in a studio or at an off-site event), through to customer ordering and payment, printing of the images by an external laboratory and delivery of the product to the customer.
Depending on the type of shoot, customers can either view images in the studio immediately after the session or by logging in to the GFP website. Being able to show customers proofs immediately increases both the prospects of a sale and the likely value of the sale. Digital processing has also enabled far greater flexibility in the ordering options available to customers, introducing features such as photo captioning, borders and effects.
Orders are processed automatically and all image and order data is transferred digitally to an external printing laboratory, which operates a Production Module developed by Ignia to accept this information. This module automates all aspects of the printing process by communicating directly with the laboratory's printing equipment, even to the extent of printing customer address labels.
The key benefit of the Capture and Point Of Sale Module is significantly reduced costs due to the elimination of manual processing. The streamlined digital processes allowed GFP to close its main production and packing facility, significantly reducing headcount and operating costs.
Customer Website
The final element for transforming the way GFP did business was the elimination of a highly unproductive sales process. The traditional method of selling prints following a shoot was to produce a pack of prints and mail this to the customer on a "sale or return" basis. With a typical return rate of 80%, this was a very costly way of doing business.
The website developed by Ignia has made it possible for GFP to replace this sales model with a far more economical alternative. Instead of receiving a print pack, customers can view images immediately after a shoot, or on the web using the login details supplied by GFP. Once logged in, customers can view prints and order them in a range of different sizes and with a variety of presentation options (such as coloured backgrounds and superimposed titles). Payment is accepted electronically upon completion of the order.
In the event that a customer does not log in to check proofs within a defined period of time, the system initiates a series of escalating notifications to remind the customer that proofs are available for viewing. This process begins with an email, which can then be escalated to a letter in the post or the production of a sample pack.
As well as drastically reducing the cost of sales, the website - in conjunction with the 100% digital production process - offers customers substantially greater ordering flexibility than was possible with the traditional model of ordering packs.
What the Client Has To Say
When the GFP board first approached Ignia in 2004, we understood that we needed to shift into the digital age, which involved creating new business processes from scratch. Ignia played a vital role in managing this transformation. They looked at our workflows and made many valuable recommendations - without their input, I doubt that we would have a system anywhere near as good as the one we now have.
In the period that we have worked with Ignia, I've come to see them as an extension of the GFP team. They have gone out of their way to understand our business and are committed to adding value through the work that they have done. The Ignia team are always looking for opportunities to streamline our processes, reduce our costs and improve our profitability.
Even when this project winds down, I expect we will continue to work with Ignia to help us to sustain the improvements they have helped us achieve.
Georges France - Managing Director, Georges France Photography
Testimonials
