Typefi is a global leader in single-source automated publishing software for print, web and mobile, enabling people to publish their content faster and in more formats—without compromising on design or content integrity. They offer a cutting edge, user-friendly platform which provides customers—from small businesses through to global publishers, international organisations and Fortune 500 companies—with the ability to take a single source document and automatically render it in their choice of over 30 formats for print, online and mobile in just minutes with 100% accuracy.

In this piece, we hear from Shanna Bignell, Marketing Associate at Typefi – 2016 winner of The Premier of Queensland’s Small Business Award, and 2017 Finalist: Small Business Award.

What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges in export at the moment, and how are you approaching them?

Our export opportunities tend to be more industry-based rather than geographically-based. Some of our biggest opportunities at the moment are standards publishing, the US financial services market, and the legal publishing market.

You know the International Organization for Standardization, ISO? They make global standards and most countries have a National Standards Body that adopts the global standards as well as creating its own local standards. There’s a lot of publishing that goes into those standards, and Typefi helps them with that. We have ISO as a client and we provide many of the National Standards Bodies with the same technology that ISO uses so that we can help to standardise the production of standards across the world.

We’re also looking at financial services in the USA, as they generate a lot of fact sheets and other documents for their clients, which all requires a significant amount of time to create and get out there; we help speed-up and increase the accuracy of production. Legal publishing in the USA also generates high volumes of published content. .

Servicing a global customer base presents something of a challenge. We don’t sell our product and then just walk away -it’s not the sort of product that you can buy off the shelf. It’s an enterprise piece of software that you have to be trained in how to use, and we’re also constantly updating it. We’re constantly making improvements to it and adding new features, and this means that we’re constantly working with our customers around the world in order to troubleshoot any issues that they have, improve the way they’re using the platform, and offer new upgrades and features as they come out.

We have a team of about 45 people who are based all around the world. We’re all in different time zones, but we work together as one team. We have teams within teams but working together as a single unit can be quite challenging. Finding ways to have face time with our customers is also demanding. Our CEO, for example, does a lot of travel in order to visit all our customers and make sure that they’re going okay and that they’re happy. We invest the time and effort, and it’s worth it.

How do you establish partnerships along the supply chain?

We have quite a strong group of partners that we work with. Typefi does a lot, but it doesn’t do everything. And so, we partner with a lot of other organisations, some of which are software providers that offer complementary software. We can then buckle this software onto our own so that it ultimately provides more features for our customers. We also have a group of partners who are service providers who offer complementary services. They’re things like translation or converting content into a new version or into a new format  in order to keep up with changing trends and innovations.

How do you establish networks of people to bounce ideas off in export?

There are so many opportunities to develop networks, and we’re doing it all the time. We keep in touch with Government departments such as Trade and Investment Queensland, as well as relevant industry associations, who provide valuable access to resources and people who are really working hard to represent our interests out there. A lot of enrichment of our networks also comes from attending industry-based events, and connecting directly with our customers provides significant ideas and a great testbed for those ideas. These are all sources that are directly relevant to our industry, but really, every conversation that you have is an opportunity to learn something new and it might be someone completely left of field who provides that insight that you need.

Like the insights you’ve gained? Shanna Bignell will be speaking at the Sunshine Coast’s Exporter’s Forum on 2 August, in a panel discussion moderated by our Director Najib Lawand. It will include insights from Euromonitor International and feature other Queensland Export Award Winners and Finalists from a diverse range of industry sectors. Seating is limited; book now to confirm your place. Learn more about it here. See you soon!