Looking to increase efficiency in turnover and budget for the production of their product brochures, Chicago-based Parco Foods, L.L.C. sought out the technical expertise of the custom software developers at Chicago Software Solutions (CSS).

	High quality print design With the CSS-designed brochure generator, Parco sales reps are able to quickly generate brochures online.

Parco, employer of over 500,
has been a leading producer of specialty-baked goods for more than 40 years.

Previously, creating and updating Parco sales brochures for use by sales reps was a lengthy and expensive process, requiring a skilled designer to spend at least a half an hour to produce one, as well as additional communication between the sales reps and the designer.

Seeking a New Method

Charlie Hoch, Vice President of Marketing at Parco felt that it was time to streamline the brochure generation process but found no packaged application on the market that would meet their requirements. In the process of seeking a consulting company to advise on a software solution, Hoch was referred to CSS.

"From the first meeting, Parco's objective, in very simple terms, was to develop a means by which their sales reps could generate quality sales sheets on their own, from anywhere in the world, whether it be from their Chicago office or a Kinko's location and print them from a laser color printer," said CSS consultant, Dan Phillips.

Database-driven brochure designer for speed and accuracy The simple online designer provides even first-time users the ability to design sell sheets in less than 5 minutes. Sales reps can then print the designs locally or forward them to Kinkos.

Phillips and the Parco team worked together to identify the core objectives of an integrated system. "We helped them understand what was realistic and also illustrated several ways in which they could leverage this system to do more than they had anticipated, such as centralizing their product management to use in conjunction with any number of internal applications," said Phillips.

CSS then developed a Web accessible brochure generator. It enabled Parco's sales reps to directly produce custom survey and presentation sheets for their customer base from a list of customizable templates, all online.

Return on Investment

"It will save Parco $40,000 a year in production costs and it certainly gives us more flexibility to create sell sheets as well as making them more timely," said Hoch. Now a sales rep can design a professional brochure in 2 to 10 minutes in the office without having to rely on a designer.

"Before we implemented the system, there was no way to guarantee consistency and accuracy of product information. Now, using the centralized database, the tool ensures that items added to a brochure are using the most accurate, updated product information," said Phillips.

	PDF ready for high quality printing or email Users can see their 300 dpi PDFs at any time when generating the their brochures.

The new system offers both high quality generation with 300 dpi resolution and smaller screen-ready PDFs for emailing. Other features include the ability to copy designs, add and remove products, add and remove client logos as well as inserting of original background designs.

About Chicago Software Solutions

Chicago Software Solutions is a full-service, custom software provider focused on improving business practices through technology. With experience in database applications, office tool customizations, Internet development and PDA applications, Chicago Software Solutions works closely with each client to provide the solutions they need.