Your Future with the IMB
Understanding the present barcode is an integral part of planning for your future with the Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMB).
No one is sure exactly how the current generation of barcode — the POSTNET™ — is being generated. There may be legacy barcode rendering applications and fonts, unchanged for years, that are now doing the job. These applications may vary by location, line of business, and/or document stream. Additionally, customers may be efficiently rendering barcodes on documents only to have additional, and potentially different, barcodes sprayed-on in the mail process.
As your enterprise changes and grows, it is common to be unsure of exactly how current barcodes and endorsements are being rendered. This is not a problem, but you must re-establish the knowledge in order to plan for the changes required by the IMB.
The deployment of the IMB requires your enterprise to not only consider your barcode strategy, but catalog and analyze each automated print stream, ensuring on-time implementations. The larger the enterprise and more dissimilar the mailstreams, the more planning required.
To achieve true effectiveness, each mailstream must be analyzed and the appropriate actions taken. To help with the transition, your business should implement the following recommendations:
- Implement IMB services for each mailstream — business needs change rapidly and reverse implementation is not cost effective
- Enforce minimal standard implementations of the IMB
- Develop uniform processes for sharing information between your business and your outsourced business partner — this is critical for unique IDs and compliance information
Deploying IMB takes more than savvy operations and IT resources to successfully implement on-time and under budget. Line of business owners must support the effort since they will ultimately benefit from new services and better delivery of critical communications.
Many of the solutions you currently use are already IMB enabled. Your partners also have specific postal expertise and compliant solutions to help you meet the requirements and maintain your good standing with your other partner — the USPS®.
While some of the concepts surrounding the implementation of the IMB may have your head spinning, the first steps are fairly straightforward. There is a call to action here that is regulatory based — however there are also commercial opportunities. It is these commercial opportunities that your competition is considering, enabling them to steal your customers and be a stronger foe by lowering their cost basis.
It is important to immediately begin planning for these changes. The first steps include:
- Bringing your partners in for a formal IMB consulting assessment and analysis
- Using this analysis to work with all stakeholders to develop a plan and secure budgets to support success
With a solid foundation of knowledge and a strong plan for deployment, the IMB should be a key element of your mailing approach and a critical component of your customer communication strategy.
For more information on how Group 1 Software can help you effectively and successfully deploy the IMB, email us today at mailstream_intelligentmail@g1.com or call 888-413-6763.