Business News

10 Years of ACCHSH: The Anniversary Meeting of Business Partners in Cracow

Wednesday 28. October 2009 - In 2009 ACCHSH company, the provider of the advanced solutions based on the PuzzleFlow production system, celebrates its 10-years anniversary. To honour this occasion, over 40 business partners, key customers, professional media representatives and ACCHSH’s employees had a meeting in Cracow, where the anniversary was celebrated for three days.

The meeting was a perfect occasion to present the latest software based on the PuzzleFlow platform and to conduct workshops under the guidance of specialists from ACCHSH, PuzzleFlow Solutions Europe and PuzzleFlow Solutions USA.

The event, held from the 9th till the 11th of October, was already the third of this type of international meetings organized by ACCHSH. This time it gained a special setting due to the 10th anniversary of the company. Among participants there were the most important business partners, distributors and customers form such countries as: Brazil, the Netherlands, Spain, Latvia, Germany, Poland, Russia and the USA. There were also representatives of the Polish trade magazines and programmers from ACCHSH – both from Cracow (the town where the headquarters of the company as well as its R&D centre are located) and Warsaw (where the sales and marketing department is located).
The first, strictly professional part of the meeting was held at the Secesja Hotel in Cracow district of Kazimierz. Andrzej Czyz, CEO of ACCHSH, and one – apart from Marcin Streszewski – of the company’s founders welcomed the guests. During the opening speech he depicted shortly the company’s history underlying the “mile stones” of its development such as the emergence of the PDF Organizer software in 1999 (it was the first ever imposition software based on native PDF files) and the Hot Picks Award the software gained during the Seybold conference in San Francisco and the first OEM contract signed with Purup-Eskofot in 2000. He listed also other prizes and awards that the PuzzleFlow system had gained: Worth a Look at Graph Expo 2002, another Hot Picks at the Seybold conference in 2002, the Golden Medal of Poligrafia 2007 and finally this year’s EDP award (for PuzzleFlow Publisher software). Presenting the strategy and the structure of ACCHSH company, Andrzej Czyz emphasized also its uniqueness: a number of employees, especially with longer professional background in the company, are at the same time its shareholders. He also noted that ACCHSH hasn’t sold its products directly but only exclusively through partners and distributors, and starting from this year – also basing on franchising agreements.
The subsequent speaker was Tomasz Drazek, the Head of PuzzleFlow-based Solutions Team. He presented ACCHSH’s products offer (divided into tools, workflow systems, solutions and services) and described target markets for which particular software is developed (printing houses, publishing houses/advertising agencies, newspapers, “tailor made” products). Tomasz Drazek announced also a couple of new solutions that were about to appear in the company’s offer, i.e. New Publisher (the comprehensive solution for advertising agencies and publishing houses) and Rendering Library (the software for PDF documents interpretation). With a short portray of ACCHSH’s plans for the near future, he announced the intention for extensive cooperation with partners and customers, further development of products that were in the company’s portfolio, more projects adapted to specific customer needs as well as the improvement of the technical support services.
The short speeches were also given by the heads of two companies that in the preceding weeks had become the first franchisees of PuzzleFlow brand and technology. Richard Laframboise, partner from Flashlight-Digital company (that represents ACCHSH on the American market under the brand name PuzzleFlow Solutions USA), presented two software applications developed by ACCHSH and improved with the American users from newspapers production sector in mind: PuzzleFlow WebPairer and PuzzleFlow Automator. He presented also the PuzzleFlow Prepress Assistant module that had been prepared on the request of one of the company’s American customers. Moreover, Richard Laframboise mentioned fresh successes of PuzzleFlow Solutions USA: the OEM contract with Screen on distribution of PuzzleFlow software bundled with TruePress Jet 520 machines (signed during Print’09 trade fair), gained just before the mentioned fair agreement on PuzzleFlow distribution by Konica Minolta Graphic Imaging USA Company on the American newspapers market as well as implementation of systems based on PuzzleFlow in Corporate Newspaper Holdings Inc. (16 locations in various USA regions) and Liturgical Publications (4 printing houses).
Toon de Munnik, partner from Dutch company Ready4Print (being the franchisee of PuzzleFlow technology that operates under the name of PuzzleFlow Solutions Europe), presented the largest implementation of the PuzzleFlow-based software on the Benelux market: a contract with Sanoma magazine publishing house concerning PuzzleFlow Printing On Demand solution. He also presented various models of selling solutions from PuzzleFlow brand, such as: the purchase of finished product (so called box version), software licensing, and the SaaS type service (Software as a Service).
After the presentations it was the right time for Andrzej Czyz to award the most important, mostly long-standing ACCHSH business partners. Four companies: Flashlight-Digital, Ready4Print, Lewald & Partner (being the long-standing distributor of PuzzleFlow solutions on the German, Austrian, and Swiss markets) and Reprograf (the company that out of all Polish distributors reached the largest number of PuzzleFlow systems implementations) received the title of the Certified PuzzleFlow Partner. All four companies were also honoured with the commemorative statues confirming long-standing fruitful business cooperation with ACCHSH. This part of the meeting was finalized with nice element of handing commemorative samurai sword to Andrzej Czy? by the representatives of Reprograf (being a distributor of numerous Japanese brands).

The afternoon part of that first day of the professional meeting, i.e. the 9th of October, was held in ACCHSH’s Cracow-based R&D Centre. There, the specialists from ACCHSH, PuzzleFlow Solutions Europe and PuzzleFlow Solutions USA lead their workshops dedicated to particular solutions based on PuzzleFlow systems and addressed to various market segments. The workshops’ participants were divided into a couple of groups, in which for two hours they could not only see software applications at work but also ask questions and discuss particular issues with software developers. Jacek Franczyk and Pawel Jackowski talked over the ACCHSH solutions dedicated to commercial printing market – PuzzleFlow Printing On Demand and PuzzleFlow Factory, Richard Laframboise discussed PuzzleFlow WebPairer system for newspapers and PuzzleFlow Automator for magazine printers and publishers, whereas Toon de Munnik covered the on-line services based on PuzzleFlow Print On Demand technology.

The anniversary meeting was also a good occasion for informal discussions during two common dinners organized in Cracow’s traditional Polish restaurants. The guests had also other surprises as paintball play and sightseeing tour with a balloon, where from at the height of 300 ft. one could admire marvellous view of the former Polish capital city. Those who were eager could join in a trip over Cracow and to Wieliczka – this relaxing part of the event was especially enjoyable for foreign participants.
Andrzej Czyz, CEO of ACCHSH concludes: We wish to thank all guests from Poland and abroad who found their time to celebrate the 10th anniversary of ACCHSH with us. We believe that the Cracow-based meeting was not only the occasion for our partners and cooperating companies to meet each other but also created a platform for formal and informal discussions on solutions developed by our company. The last period, despite a market downturn, has brought us a substantial sales boost and an increase in the number of PuzzleFlow system implementations. We hope that together with our partners all over the world we make this tendency to be still more evident.