Reprographers, how do you compete with “free” ???

In the recent Survey of Reprographers conducted by Reprographics 101, we asked several questions about e-planroom services.

According to the “survey results”…..

39 out of 44 Reprographers indicated that they offer e-planroom services.

29 out of 44 Reprographers indicated that they believe that offering an e-planroom service is essential to their business and to their customers.

16 Reprographers indicated that they “charge” for e-planroom services.

Only 3 Reprographers indicated that they “give away” e-planroom services (i.e., for free) in return for the opportunity to print.

23 Reprographers indicated that they do both – charge for e-planroom services and provide e-planroom services for free

20 Reprographers indicated that they either don’t make a profit on e-planroom services or they don’t know if they do or not.

In the survey, we also asked a question about “threats/risks” to Reprographers, and a couple of survey participants indicated that “Blue Book” is a threat/risk. So, I decided to look up Blue Book, and found that BB offers a “free”, evidently fully-supported e-planroom service. I would imagine that BB targets contractors for this free e-planroom service.

Here’s some information about Blue Book’s free e-planroom service:

Delivering Your Project Documents Quickly, 
Securely and Free!

How It Works… The BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room is an easy and secure way to share project documents with the vendors you choose at no charge. Because the BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room is hosted by The Blue Book, there’s no need to worry about acquiring the right technology or purchasing a dedicated server. The BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room is fast becoming the most actively used private plan room in the industry. Over 200 Blue Book Construction Professionals nationwide and an internal team of Support Specialists are educating local contractors and suppliers - every day - to help simplify their workflow with cost-saving online tools like the BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room. How You Benefit… BB-Bid can simplify your bidding process and help you save time and money distributing your project documents by providing: Control and Security • One location for your plans puts you in control of document revisions • Access to your project documents is through private invitation only • Reporting feature lets you track Plan Room activity Functionality and Support • You can deliver documents directly from your desktop with SyncWare, The Blue Book's new, free desktop application, as well as via FTP, email or on CD • The Blue Book will convert any file format to the industry standard PDF • The Blue Book staff will name and index the files based on the title block Takeoff and Markup • You and your vendors have access to Vu360, The Blue Book's new, free viewer with complete web browsing capability • Invited vendors can take measurements and markup documents online • You can easily share markups and respond to RFIs Featuring… Two New Tools to Help Manage Your Project Documents... SnycWare – A free software application that works directly with the BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room. SyncWare enables you to upload, share and control your documents right from your desktop Vu360 – The Blue Book’s own free viewer is now integrated within the BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room. This allows your invited vendors to take measurements and markup documents online, while enabling you to share markups easily with your project team. How To Get Started… Just fill out the information below and a Blue Book Product Support Specialist will contact you as soon as possible to provide a brief walk-through of this service. Or call 888-303-2243 to speak with a Specialist today! http://www.thebluebook.com/plan_room.shtml