EFI White-paper
By: Cary Sherburne
Introduction
Henry Ford was known for innovation in the manufacturing process. He was a huge success, but he never stopped learning. In fact, he said:
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
And motivational speaker Brian Tracy said:
“Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the inde nite future.”
These inspirational gures give us great advice, for both our professional and personal lives. Professionally, there are many learning opportunities that also offer certification that can increase both con dence and credibility. For this white paper we decided to explore how achieving Fiery Certification in particular brought instant value with the implementation of newly developed skills to impact the dealer’s business.
Summary
As background research for this white paper, we spoke with a number of individuals in the dealer community who have achieved Fiery® Certification at either the Professional or Expert level or implemented the certi cation process for their sta . Some of the bene ts they achieved through certification include:
- Increased employee con dence in demos, sales calls, and solution recommendations, leading to an increase in professional services revenues.
- Dealer market di erentiation: customers have more con dence when they know their dealer is certified.
- Elevating the customer relationship to a strategic partnership, helping customers evolve over time by acting in a consultative role.
- Ability to resolve customer issues more quickly through more personal knowledge. Fiery Experts also have the added bene t of direct access to EFITM Fiery support.
- Improved customer loyalty and satisfaction: trained customers get much more out of their Fiery and print engine investments than they might otherwise have done. This includes “right the first time” file preparation and better color management.
- Improved employee job satisfaction and a professional development path for employees.
Fiery Professional Certi cation: Getting started
Developed by EFI subject matter experts, Fiery Professional Certification helps dealers be more competitive by developing employee skills and enhancing their professional development and motivation. It’s a convenient, a ordable online program that includes about 12 hours of online training over 15 courses. The program carries a nominal charge, and certi cation is achieved when all courses have been taken and an online certi cation exam with a score of 80% or higher is achieved.
Senior systems engineer Paul Judziewicz, a 15-year industry veteran who obtained certification at the Gordon Flesch Company, is a great example of the Fiery Certification program in action. The Gordon Flesch Company prides itself on using the best technology in the business — sold, serviced, and supported by the most customer-focused professionals in the industry.
To live up to the company’s promise, Judziewicz completed numerous training programs — and has the certification to prove it. He holds a Microsoft® Certified Systems Engineer certification, an Apple® Certified Macintosh Technician certification, a CompTIA Certified Document Imaging Architect certification, and an IDEAlliance CMP-Master certification. These achievements ensure critical knowledge in document imaging and document management. They also signify a deep knowledge of color matching systems and standards. His latest addition to this impressive list is EFI Fiery Professional Certification.
Even though Judziewicz has been using EFI Fiery technology for more than 20 years, he reports that he “learned quite a lot about the latest Fiery technology” by going through the program. It placed him in a better position to be a strategic partner to customers, and it improved his overall job satisfaction.
A Production Print Solutions Analyst from a major manufacturer of printing systems that we spoke with echoes Judziewicz’s comments, saying, “Even though I have been working with digital front ends for the past 10 years, I never truly understood all of the details of what a Fiery server does and how it works. But since I have taken the program, I can now talk with customers about how to use Fiery DFE to its fullest extent. I can now clearly articulate how it works, why we do what we do, and how it will make their output that much better. As a result, we have happier customers who are getting signi cantly more out of their Fiery and print engine investments.” He also pointed out that completing the certification program gave him the ability to better help customers set up prede ned work ows, allowing the initiation of complicated tasks with a few clicks instead of reinventing the wheel each time. “This makes my customers more productive and confident in their work while increasing their confidence in my ability to help them,” he says.
Fiery Expert Certification: Raising the bar
Dealers, distributors, and end users who want to raise the bar on their quali cations also have the opportunity to seek Fiery Expert Certi cation. To be eligible to enroll in Fiery Expert Certi cation, participants need to be Fiery Certi ed Professionals. Then they must complete six additional online courses and a two-day intensive classroom-based curriculum which is usually conducted at an EFI facility, or on-site if there are a sufficient number of participants. Michelle Seppamaki, Professional Services Manager at Michigan O ce Solutions who hosted an on-site class, says, “The training went very well. Instructors worked with us in advance to ensure that everything we needed was on hand ahead of time and that the session went as smoothly as possible.”
Antony Browy, Director of Production Print Solutions for Zeno Solutions, says, “We have about a dozen Fiery certified staff . At the Professional level, it provides a great foundation for understanding the attributes inside of a Fiery server — how to create work ows, tools for managing jobs, basic color, and how to design a color work ow. I want them to be able to recite how to x something out of their heads. Certi cation gives them an incredible foundation to be able to do that. At the Expert level, you take the knowledge to a much more granular level, getting deep into color workflows, converting spot colors, mapping color gamut, content marketing, and variable data, and even integrating with PRINERGY and : Apogee worflows. Now you are creating a Van Gogh, building the masterpiece! One thing I loved about the program is that it is very methodical; each module builds on the foundation you learned in the prior module. And the trainers were phenomenal.”
Increased customer confidence
Seppamaki reports that there are 10 people on her sta with Fiery Expert Certi cations. This includes both professional services analysts and eld service technicians, and the company has made Fiery Expert Certi cation a requirement when new sta comes on board. “We found there was a lot of cross-over between professional services and eld service when questions or issues cropped up in the eld,” she explains. “It made sense to train professionals from both disciplines. Fiery Expert Certi cation also gave us the added bene t of being able to directly contact Fiery support rather than having to go through our equipment manufacturer. This helps us resolve customer issues more quickly and e ciently.” In addition to gaining in-depth Fiery knowledge, the Michigan O ce Solutions team found an unexpected benefit. “The best part of the whole class was the shirts,” Seppamaki says, only partly in jest. “When customers question whether our people are quali ed, the Fiery Certified Expert shirts help them tell the story. Truthfully, this certification makes a huge difference in the eyes of the customer and helps us differentiate ourselves.”
For more information about Fiery Certification and other EFI training and services, visit www.efi.com/training-and-services/.
