Copy King Cultivates New Corporate Service Entries

<B> Copy King Cultivates New Corporate Service Entries</B>

By Erika S. Warcholak

To lighten the loads that, literally, weigh heavily on the shoulders of mobile professionals, Kinko's now offers the full gamut of business and document services, enabling business travelers to leave behind their hefty presentation materials.

Corporate travelers need not look far to find help with their printing, computer, mailing and presentation needs, because in addition to its more than 900 stores, Kinko's now operates in 15 high-traffic business sites, including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Renaissance hotels (mainly airport or downtown properties); convention centers in Orlando and Seattle; and even a railway station in Tokyo. And the Kinko's corporate program provides clients with easy-to-use technology and payment options.

One corporate client, national procurement manager Tom Troyanek of Trane Co. in Wisconsin, said Kinko's "saves the weight and the towage of hauling all your presentation materials. Travelers can just take the disk to a Kinko's, or send it electronically, and let them produce the copies and bring them to the presentation." For an upcoming meeting, Troyanek plans to e-mail the documents to Kinko's two weeks ahead of time, and "when we get there, everything will be ready for us. And we won't have to haul it or ship it there, so it's cheaper."

With Kinko's corporate- and user-friendly payment arrangement--offering a preferred customer card and a commercial account card--paying has been simplified too. The preferred customer card is a discount card presented at the time of payment that enables travelers to pay with whatever tender they choose. The commercial account card acts as a credit card and carries a liability to the customer, who receives a bill for usage.

"We do $25,000 to $27,000 a month with Kinko's," said Troyanek, who has had an ongoing arrangement with the company since doing a cost-benefit analysis about five years ago. At that time, Trane found that, "to make one copy internally cost 9 cents. Kinko's came in and we were able to negotiate a deal down to 3.5 cents. So that's about a 40 percent savings."

In addition to price, Troyanek said, Kinko's "has the locations, which was the biggest thing," though the corporate cards also helped Trane reduce its internal costs. "When we end up in a hotel, we get stuck paying their reproduction prices. With Kinko's corporate cards, travelers can contact Kinko's and they come over to the hotel and pick up the stuff for us," he said.

Troyanek said Trane's business relationship with Kinko's may go farther yet. "We want to figure out a way to utilize their Internet capabilities and our intranet capabilities on communicating the projects that need to be copied. We want to take our submittal program and download it, transmit it to a local Kinko's, have them copy it and forward it on to the end-user."

Kinko's now employs more than 600 account managers to work with corporations to ensure that presentation materials arrive at the place of business. That eliminates the need for travelers to walk into a Kinko's to pick up or place an order--an increasingly appealing attraction for the ever-busy road warrior.

Kinko's technologically enabled business centers offer Internet access, copying and computer services, custom printing and electronic document distribution.

To make things even simpler, Kinko's has an Internet site, (www.kinkos.com), for order and delivery services. To use Kinkonet, users first must identify to which Kinko's their documents will be sent, and from there, "we try to get as much detail as possible in order to avoid any disparity from customer expectation. We ask questions about stapling, binding, drilling, type of cover, how you want to review your proof and any other pertinent information, and then we set up the delivery," said strategic account manager Dan Hogan.

<B><CENTER>Other Options For Road Warriors</CENTER></B>

Kinko's competitor Sir Speedy offers similar services, though it does not have any corporate relationships. Said spokesperson Mike Ebbing, "We have an Alpha Hospitality Network, which is similar to what Kinko's is doing, where 70 to 100 centers are involved with hotels in the same type of deal. If there is a hotel in the same area as a Sir Speedy, travelers can hook up their computers and send files back and forth to the Sir Speedy. And we do have Sir Speedy online, which we encourage business travelers to use while they're on the road."

Via disk or the Internet, travelers can send documents and job requirements to any Sir Speedy across the country, and have the documents printed out when they arrive at their local destination. Like Kinko's, Sir Speedy offers free pickup and delivery.

Though the Alpha Hospitality Network is growing, "it's still in its infancy, in regards to getting involved with partnerships," Ebbing acknowledged.

On the videoconferencing side, meanwhile, Kinko's is overhauling its technology. Videoconferencing coordinator Martin Wolcott said usage of the 130 videoconferencing rooms, which can double as private temporary office space in addition to normal meeting space, has increased by 25 percent annually since their introduction in 1993.

Still, at a breakout session on videoconferencing at BTN's Corporate Travel World show last month, Ann Earon, president of Telemanagement Resources International, Skillman, N.J., speculated that even while equipment is increasing in quality and decreasing in cost, its use will cotinue to grow slowly.

"There's growth led by mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, cost-cutting and the drop in equipment cost, but videoconferencing never will dramatically take off," Earon said. "The technology is evolutionary, and there are a lot of political and cultural issues to consider. In the coming years, though, it will be a necessity."

Some corporations are using public videoconferencing rooms to test whether or not the technology is right for them, Kinko's Wolcott said. "Even if they have the money and space for the equipment, companies need to be sure their employees will take to videoconferencing. Public videoconferencing is a great way to test-market their interest. We have had companies use our rooms so much that they found it justified buying their own equipment."

The concept interested Joyce Bembry, manager of global business travel for Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont Co. "The notion of public videoconferencing has a place for companies considering less expensive options to meet. But I don't believe it will reduce travel. It will allow people to travel for different purposes to a higher end.