In this blog post, SNAP Innovation Sales Director, Paul Hoerbelt, explains how their partnership with the world’s friendliness publishing platform began, what makes it so special, and the business benefits it brings them – both today and tomorrow.
A Snap History
SNAP Innovation started out in basic software design, but in 2003 the company became the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for a vendor of the vjoon K4 publishing and editorial system built on InDesign. In the same year, SNAP became a reseller of that software, and in doing so entered a vibrant market where large customers were looking to transition from QuarkXPess to InDesign-driven workflows.
With a team of around 10 project managers, SNAP started to ramp-up visits to publishers in Germany, making innovative use of software to help streamline workflows. A few years later, the company became two separate yet related businesses: one half would focus on developing a secure and encrypted peer to peer connection tool – TeamDrive – and the other would focus on services for improving publishing workflows.
Gaining traction in the legal publishing domain, TeamDrive offered a secure yet shareable cloud solution for sensitive, internal content, such as annual reports. However, the challenge facing the publishing workflow arm of the business was how to provide the most efficient authoring and editing functionality. For customers and project owners, Adobe seemed to offer all the answers, but the actual content creators craved their existing software. Authors didn’t want to have to learn a new writing tool. They wanted to work in Microsoft Word.
That’s when PublishOne approached SNAP with a solution which enabled writers to create and edit content using their favourite tools, whilst giving publishers the power to structure content using customizable templates. Not only that, but they could also easily convert content into multiple industry-standard file types – and back again.
So, in 2019, SNAP Innovation partnered with PublishOne as a reseller.
Partnership With PublishOne
What most impressed SNAP Innovation about PublishOne was how it dealt with Word as a text editor. At the same time, they saw the potential of its file conversion functionality, which meant their customers, mainly legal publishers, could easily convert back and forth between commonly used files types such as XML and EPUB. With most customers owning multiple publications and distributing them in various formats, PublishOne gave SNAP’s customers the hassle-free flexibility to create once and publish everywhere.
For the team at SNAP, PublishOne really has lived up to its tag line of being ‘the friendly publishing platform’. As a vendor, SNAP is treated the same way as a customer. They feel heard. There is also a cultural alignment between the two companies, which is something that can be hard to find in a competitive marketplace. This helps when it comes to reselling because SNAP knows they’re going to be treated fairly, and their efforts will be appreciated.
This is especially important in the German market, where the uptake and adoption of cutting-edge technologies can typically move at a slower pace. Like PublishOne’s customers, as a vendor SNAP is fully involved with the evolution of the software, ensuring that the priorities for development are fully aligned with their customers’ needs – such as integrating Microsoft Translate and Microsoft Excel.
Unlocking New Markets
The beauty of PublishOne as a solution is that what applies in one area of publishing can be picked up, repeated, and applied in other sectors as well. In fact, it works in any sector where writers want to continue working in Microsoft Word, and publishers want to give templated structure to multiple content and assets.
For SNAP, this standardized yet customizable approach is helping to unlock access to other markets. The amazing thing is that whilst they bring in new customers to the PublishOne platform, PublishOne also reciprocates by introducing new customers to SNAP. Right now, there’s a focus on the publishing arms of national and local government, but whatever the sector, PublishOne is always open to new ways to improve and evolve – without alienating their existing customer base.
In fact, when it comes to product development, PublishOne really values the needs of their existing customers. After all, what’s good for customers is good for the product. They thrive on building long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationships. For vendors, that makes selling the product much more straightforward because it grows with the needs of end-users in mind, no matter what field they happen to be publishing in.
