It seems everyone these days is involved in AI. It’s not just the tech industry; in fact, all sorts of businesses the world over have adopted artificial intelligence in some way, shape or form, incorporating it into their business model. It won’t be long before AI is everywhere.
This trend reminds me of a different technology that took the world by storm—one that was revolutionary at the time but today is considered table stakes for any business. That technology is software.
“Everyone is In the Software Business”
I recall a conversation from approximately 15 years ago. A bunch of us dads were chatting at one of our sons’ Little League games, talking business. One of the fathers—I believe he worked at Google—made an offhand comment that stuck with me.
“Everyone,” he said, “is in the software business.”
That simple statement really resonated with me. Not because it was a revelation—at that time, OnFulfillment was 10 years old, and a good part of our business was already largely software-based. We were believers.
The reason it had such an impact is because those six words confirmed something I had believed from the outset: to be successful and remain competitive, we had to fearlessly embrace and employ the same emerging technologies that our customers were developing and using.
That validation inspired and motivated me. If software was the future, we needed to commit to it. Rather than rely on third-party solutions and licensed platforms, which we had been doing up to that point, we had to take responsibility and build our own tools. Simply being competitive wasn’t enough; we wanted to beat the competition. And the best way to do that was to define exactly what we wanted to do, how we wanted to do it, and then develop custom software that would allow us to achieve that goal.
We were all in: we would become a software company.
Bringing Software In-House
The first thing we did was hire a team of developers and dev ops professionals to make our vision a reality. A focus was placed on finding experienced engineers with knowledge of advanced marketing asset management software technology to help us build the robust, secure, and scalable solutions we envisioned.
From that point on, our internally developed software became the enabling technology behind the OnFulfillment experience. The ultimate goal was to build a powerful marketing portal that would allow our customers to manage and monitor all of their various time-consuming tasks—printing, shipping, collateral, inventory, event logistics, branded merchandise—from the comfort of their desktop. Everything could be accomplished with the simple click of a mouse. OnFulfillment would do the heavy lifting.
Through the globally available portal, customers can also manage their account with surgical precision. For instance, users can selectively support whichever payment options they desire, including credit cards, points programs, internal cost center allocation, purchase orders, and market development funds (MDFs). They control who has access to which assets and materials depending on job title, department, and various other criteria. They can even manage which shipping options, freight quotes, approval rights, and budget allocations are available for different groups.
To foster creativity and personalization, OnFulfillment’s digital asset management (DAM) and variable data printing (VDP) capabilities empower users to create customized materials and conduct brand-compliant marketing campaigns—all right from the portal.
Full Administrative Capabilities
Another critical objective of the software team was to provide users with accurate, up-to-date visibility into their accounts. Real-time administrative features built into the robust software platform record and reflect even the tiniest changes immediately, ensuring the latest figures are always at customers’ fingertips.
These same administrative features gather, collate, and process data 24x7x365, allowing users to generate virtually any kind of report they can imagine—everything from active users and real-time inventory levels to how much individuals have spent and what they’ve spent it on. If a specific report you need isn’t available, OnFulfillment’s commitment to software means they can build it for you and even send scheduled updates. Likewise, the system can send alerts as needed—for instance, when a low-stock level threshold is crossed.
Custom Development Services
Customer needs are always evolving. That means they’re constantly looking for customized tools to address emerging challenges.
This is where our software team really shines. They embrace the opportunity to produce scalable new software solutions that not only satisfy these specific requests, but also have the potential to benefit our larger customer base. Whether it requires a simple configuration change, writing a new plug-in, upgrading current code, or developing new APIs or integrations, our process engineers relish the challenge.
Capabilities and Integrations
To ensure maximum compatibility and protection, the software team decided early on that OnFulfillment would be a Microsoft-based platform that lives and works in the Azure Cloud. The company is also a certified software vendor for the world’s top security and medical companies, all of which have extremely high qualification standards. This is an achievement that virtually none of our competitors can match.
Our software also works with the industry’s leading fulfillment, shipping, and online retail solutions, as well as the leading CRM platforms. This means that, whatever our customers are using, it’s almost guaranteed that the OnFulillment software will seamlessly integrate with it.
Finally, to protect our customers’ data, we impose strict privacy and protection services using the latest standards and best practices, including SSL and encrypted transmission. The OnFulfillment software is also designed to safely pass payment details on to our customers without ever storing sensitive information on our own servers, reducing the risk of monetary loss.
Everything is built on top of robust, proactive policies that integrate multiple automated security intelligences, backed by mandatory continuing education, defensive programming, and the best secure cloud technology.
Continuous Improvement
While our internally developed, custom software truly distinguishes OnFulfillment from the competition, we know the job is far from done. Marketing fulfillment is constantly changing and evolving. That means we need to anticipate the changes and adapt to the new technologies. As long as we are in business, it’s safe to say our software development efforts will never end.
Want to learn more about our software journey and how it can help you master the marketing fulfillment game? We’d be happy to discuss it with you. Simply fill out the form to request a meeting. We’ll be in touch to schedule something.
