Dataline ventures forth into Europe
20 September 2023
(Originally published in SignPro Benelux, September 2023 - Herman Hartman)
The development of ERP software is an ongoing process that has gained momentum in recent years as links and integration with other software products have become more prevalent. Scaling up is indispensable here to stay on top, say Christoph Krohn (Product Director) and Dirk Deroo (CEO) of Dataline Solutions, the company behind MultiPress.
We usually meet at trade fairs where Dataline shows the latest developments. This time I am a guest in Loppem, near Bruges, Dataline's home base. Where the company moved into its own newly built office villa in 2016. Dataline has been working on building an international customer base since 2015 after previously focusing mainly on the Belgian and Dutch markets.
Deroo: "We are active with MultiPress in both the graphic and sign market and saw that in the graphic market there is consolidation which reduces the number of graphic companies. In time, this has consequences for the number of customers you can serve as a software supplier, but also for the budgets you can free up for further development of your software. At the same time, there is more demand for automation and more efficient business process design. This in fact requires more budget for development and was at the time a good reason for us to take MultiPress further into Europe."
Local players
Deroo: "From the analysis of the European market for ERP software, we learned that everywhere in Europe it is mainly local providers of ERP software that hold most of that market, with each country having several players. Many of these providers are purely focused on the graphics market. That was also where our first USP lay. More and more hybrid companies can be found in Europe where commercial print and large format print/signing are offered under one roof. With MultiPress we have the perfect solution for these companies. We are one of the few suppliers to offer a module dedicated to silk screen printing. Companies often combine silk screen with large format print."
Resellers
Since 2018, Dataline has appointed resellers in several countries to take care of sales in their region. In doing so, Dataline provides all support from its own offices, translations of software and manuals, and it provides Project Managers who are responsible for actual implementation at the customer's site.
Deroo: "We have achieved decent results with this in a number of countries. MultiPress is now available in 13 language versions. German and Spanish are also among the supported languages, as well as some Scandinavian languages. In all, over 1,000 companies now use MultiPress with the number of modules they use varying." About 20% of sales in 2022 came from countries outside the Benelux. That turnover amounted to EUR 6.8 million at the time. For 2023, the target is 8.5 million euros where 28% of the turnover will come from outside the Benelux, still without taking into account the planned acquisitions.
Acquisitions
Deroo: "We found that we had to put a relatively large amount of energy into providing support abroad because of both distance and language. Our resellers/partners could only contribute to this to a limited extent. It remains an area of expertise. At the same time, we knew that in all those countries, there are ERP suppliers who have built up their own customer base and sometimes come up against the fact that the package they have developed is no longer easily maintainable. While they are too small to implement major innovations on their own. Often they have quite a few loyal customers. We have revised our strategy and in addition to using resellers/partners in Europe, we are now looking for companies that are up for an acquisition. We respect the existing agreements between the company and its customers and support for the existing product continues. Meanwhile, employees are being trained in all facets of MultiPress and whenever customers of the company come up with questions that are not being met with the existing product, they are given a proposal to switch to MultiPress. This can be a very natural progression." Dataline previously gained experience with this approach in the Netherlands. First in 2015 with the acquisition of (T&R - MultiPress) and in 2021 with the acquisition of Insad Grafisch, which offers Drumis as an ERP package. Deroo expects acquisitions to enable accelerated growth in other countries as well.
For Dataline, there is another advantage to this approach. Deroo: "You immediately have the specialists needed for customer support close to the customer, who also speak the customer's language." Opening your own office in a new region and attracting the right specialists for it takes more time and it takes longer before you see the benefits of that, Deroo says. Acquisition talks are ongoing in Spain, France and Germany, as well as in Scandinavia and Ukraine.
Process automation
There is a strong incentive to move further into Europe at this very moment. The ERP package is increasingly becoming the hub of complete process automation in companies. Dataline, with MultiPress, has come a long way in this respect and sees a lot of interest in this aspect of the European market. The company, which also had its own booth at this year's FESPA Global Print Expo, received the most questions from interested parties about precisely this aspect of using MultiPress. Many companies are determining their own choice in this for many years to come.
Expanding
"When we started developing MultiPress in 1997, it was mainly a calculator aimed at the graphics market that allowed the graphics company to make accurate cost price calculations," says Deroo. "Later, we made a conscious decision to make our calculation program suitable for the sign market as well. The basis, with time registration playing a decisive role in all calculations, remained, as did the attention to the difference in materials consumed and the product delivered. We often saw square metre-based cost price calculations in the sign market where precisely these two aspects were insufficiently worked out."
Several additional layers have been added in the years following the introduction, allowing MultiPress to facilitate all facets of the production process from purchasing to delivery and invoicing, whereby the technical aspects of the process can also be controlled from MultiPress. However, this is where a clear boundary lies.
Partnerships
Krohn: " We don't just replicate those functions needed in the different steps of the process and develop our own software for that purpose. We enter into partnerships with both hardware suppliers, software companies that specialise in one or more aspects of the business and graphic process and suppliers of the substrates and then we develop the necessary links with them. This allows us to control the process out of MultiPress." The list of partner companies is impressive and includes both suppliers in the graphics market and suppliers in the sign market, such as Agfa, Canon, Kodak, EFI and HP. In the software area, we then see Callas and Enfocus, among others.
Making a choice
The above-mentioned boundary about in-house development or linking has become more fluid given current market developments, they note at Dataline. Some steps required for the process, such as supporting web2print flightchecks, or imposition can be done in different ways. By collaborating with the suppliers that customers do business with, the company can deliver the best working solution for that customer and avoid having functions in two places in the workflow.
Krohn: "For this, it is important to be well informed about the capabilities of the range of suppliers involved. Linking software to other packages or controlling machines is not something you do at the press of a button. That partnership is important. To build a bridge, you have to place a bridgehead on both banks. That is also the case with software you link." In turn, partners are also certified by Dataline. Dataline certifies independent consultants and ERP specialists as well and has a special programme for schools.
Size matters
When linking with external parties, the scale Dataline has achieved plays a role. Smaller players cannot free up enough resources to engage with so many suppliers at the same time. Developing a new link can take too much time.
Krohn: "We also noticed among our partners, who mostly work in Europe, that it is convenient for them that we operate in several countries. It saves them a lot of effort. Igepa interprets the catalogue differently in each country, but the system is always the same. This makes it easy to link their catalogue to MultiPress in their branches in France or Germany, for example. But also with a company like Nautasign there is a link to their catalogue." In turn, the certified partners ensure that customers with questions about links to ERP are put in touch with Dataline.
Profit
Dataline's conscious decision to internationalise also benefits the home market in the Netherlands and Belgium. Deroo: "As mentioned, scale is important to keep developing and our partners find it important that our joint efforts to build links are deployed in more locations." This gives Dataline more frequent and faster access to resources that are important to them. This in turn benefits the use cases here as well. For instance, the company is currently working closely with parties such as Canon and OneVision to take integration to the next level. The focus on acquisitions also means that within the Benelux, more product managers will be available to assist users with their day-to-day queries, enabling us to deal with them faster. "We are also expanding the number of product managers in the Benelux," Deroo says. "Because here, too, the questions are becoming more complex . And let there be no misunderstanding: for us, the Belgian and Dutch customers are still important." Recently, Dataline has also strengthened its staff with a company lawyer and with Andy Willaert as General Manager with responsibility for Operations and Finance. Dirk Deroo's operational duties as CEO have largely shifted to putting the Buy and Build strategy into practice.
How does it benefit my business?
The question above comes up in every sales conversation. Without thorough analysis, Deroo feels you cannot really answer that question. To make it objective, you have to work systematically and measure and record a lot of data. That is exactly why he developed MAS (Manufacturing Auditing Software). Audit software that gives more insight into the business process, exposing all underlying dependencies. It makes the real costs of all process steps transparent, even the associated administrative actions are measured. At Dataline, they have benchmarks of all operations that they can compare with the results of the audit report. This report shows where improvements can be made, whether an investment in MultiPress is worthwhile and which modules are necessary. Deroo: "We often see that the payback period for using MultiPress is shorter than the entrepreneur previously estimated. Because we have clearly identified the administrative bottlenecks in advance, you avoid discussions later on when training employees. Yes, but I always do it this way, what's wrong with that? Or why is it actually necessary?" MAS also reveals bottlenecks in the production process where information exchange can play a role in solving them, so that, for example, the lead time of orders can be shortened or the number of production errors can be reduced. This is where the links, which can be made from the ERP package, prove their worth.