Faced with a recurring shipping challenge, design agency owners Chuck and Karen Kubiak turned to Andy Knasinski (left) and his company, NRG, for help.
- KSK Design of Milwaukee, Wis., relies on its network of Macintosh computers to design and produce marketing materials for clients.
- Its growing business presented shipping challenges that robbed skilled designers of precious time.
- The UPS Ready® NRG software solution provided a connection for the Mac platform to UPS OnLine® Tools, reducing shipment processing time from 1 ½ days to just minutes each month.
KSK Design agency founders Chuck Kubiak and Karen Shay-Kubiak readily concede that their first business location – the attic of their Milwaukee, Wis., home – wasn't exactly Madison Avenue. "But with two small children to look after, you couldn't beat the commute," says Chuck Kubiak.
When the Kubiaks' children started school, Chuck and Karen quit the attic for a more conventional location. Within three years,
KSK Design had grown into a design agency with more than a dozen employees and a formidable client roster.
Like most creative agencies, KSK runs entirely on an Apple Macintosh platform – and with good reason, according to Kubiak, who stopped working with PCs years ago. "Macs work straight out of the box, they don't get viruses or spyware and they don't need IT support," he says. "Once you've switched to Macs, there's just no going back."
"It drove us crazy"
As the company's reputation and client list grew so, too, did its shipping challenges. One client –
Snap-on Inc. – has more than 650 mobile retailers to which Kubiak must routinely ship time-sensitive point-of-purchase materials. "That's a lot of shipping tubes – and a lot of shipments to prepare," he says.
But the Kubiaks faced a challenge: Their Macs were not compatible with
UPS WorldShipTM, the flagship UPS shipping system that would enable them to easily process and manage bulk shipping operations. "We used to click and ship them one by one, which took a day and a half every month," says Kubiak, groaning at the memory. "It drove us crazy, but somebody had to do it."
A trade show meeting with entrepreneurs Andy Knasinski and Chris Larson changed all that. Knasinski's and Larson's company,
NRG, produces software that allows Apple technology to work with UPS shipping technology. And because the NRG solution carried UPS Ready
® certification, it was UPS-approved and certain to meet the Kubiaks' needs.
No more "island PC"
"NRG gives the Mac user all the power of UPS WorldShip,
UPS OnLine® Tools and UPS technology hardware such as thermal printers and digital scales, which can make short work of bulk shippings," Knasinski says. Added Larson, "We see so many Mac-based companies that still have a PC on an island in the workplace that's used only for shipping." According to Larson, these companies are missing out on the "considerable advantages" of integrating shipping operations into the Mac-based office system.
"Whether you're shipping five packages a week or 40,000, the NRG solution allows you to integrate your shipping operation with everything from Yahoo! and other online stores to MYOB and Filemaker Pro," Larson says.
KSK soon downloaded the NRG software. Kubiak recalls the first time Knasinski demonstrated its capability, preparing 650 shipping labels in about 35 minutes rather than a day and a half. "I had a big, stupid grin on my face as all these labels printed out, and I knew immediately that life was going to get better," he says. "I said, 'That's cool. I'm going home. I'm done.' "
Accelerating time to market
Eliminating the pain of their dreaded bulk shipping operations was not the only benefit of the NRG solution. "Everything now runs off a single platform, providing shipping capability at every designer's desk," Kubiak says. "We've now eliminated duplicate processes so that our designers can actually be designers, not client database and shipping specialists."
Using UPS OnLine Tools, Kubiak can compare, price and select shipping services that best fit his needs, validate addresses and provide shipping status information to his clients. "The software prints the UPS labels with the click of one button, which eliminates labor and accelerates the materials to market," he says. "In a nutshell, NRG means that we didn't have to outsource our fulfillment operation."
Kubiak had this advice for other Mac-based businesses: The NRG solution – and the access to UPS OnLine Tools that it provides – should be an essential part of their operation. "Once a new business owner has bought a Mac, a laser printer and a chair to sit on, the next thing they need is NRGShip for UPS," he says. "You need this software."
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