Caslon Announces New Digital Printing Prospect Qualification Tool

ROCHESTER, NY--September 30, 2008--Caslon, the North American Affiliate of PODi, announced today that its new Prospect Qualification Tool (PQT) is now available to all print service providers and free to PODi members. The PQT was designed to address the growing difficulty of qualifying prospects quickly, before time and energy are wasted. It helps companies determine if a new client or project is a good fit and a profitable use of finite resources. By answering a few simple questions, a sales person can know immediately if they should pursue a good prospect or pass on a potentially unprofitable one.

"Through conversations with PODi members it was clear that a need exists for a simple evaluation process. Business owners and managers want a fast way to determine how to allocate resources - a tough thing to do at the best of times," says David Erlandson, General Manager of Caslon. "The PQT saves frustration and lost profits with an effective process that can be easily implemented."

"The Prospect Qualification Tool was designed with salespeople in mind. It's easy to use and our sales staff was able to complete it in 7 to 10 minutes," says Debora Haskel, VP of Marketing at IWCO - one of several PODi members using the PQT. "They appreciated that the tool helped them identify the most profitable opportunities to pursue."

The PQT is available for Web-to-print projects and also for production projects. The tools contain both Excel and Word forms. The Excel form is full featured with simple questions and an automatic scoring function. Users enter data about the potential client / project and the resulting score, combined with a series of additional factors, leads to a clear recommendation. The scoring structure can be customized for differing business requirements. The Web-to-Print version is available for download from the Caslon website for $199. The Production Version is available for $99. Both are free to PODi members.

For more information or to get the Prospect Qualification Tool, visit the S3 Council on the Caslon website, www.caslon.net/S3_Council .

About Caslon
Since 1995, Caslon products and services have helped companies leverage rapidly advancing digital technologies, especially digital printing. In 1998, Caslon took on leadership of PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, a consortium of leading hardware, software and services providers in the digital printing industry. Caslon is also a provider of top-level services for the PODi organization, including maintaining the PPML standard and managing the online case study database. As a PODi Affiliate, Caslon delivers services for Print Service Providers. Activities include the annual PODi AppForum, the S3 Council, online seminars, white papers, industry reports, and the PODi web site.

About PODi
PODi (www.podi.org) is an industry initiative with hundreds of member companies, including Executive Board members EFI, HP, Pitney Bowes and Xerox. PODi leads the evolution of the digital printing infrastructure by promoting interoperability through standards, and advances digital printing business opportunities through market development activities, including white papers, articles, independent reports and industry speaking engagements. Membership in PODi is open to companies and organizations involved in digital printing.