Esko scoops up award for Share & Approve tool

Share & Approve, the approval tool launched worldwide in 2019 runs as a service on Esko cloud architecture and enables users to upload, share, annotate and approve packaging and labels jobs in 2D and hyper realistic 3D. It reduces the amount of approval iterations and shortens the time required to get the job completed, enabling brands and their supply chains to operate more efficiently and drive down time-to-market.

‘We’re thrilled to have been recognized by the judges in this hugely competitive category,’ said Paul Land, product manager at Esko. ‘The EFIA awards are renowned for acknowledging outstanding commitment to the flexographic print process and we’re delighted that Share & Approve has been praised for its ability to simplify and significantly boost approval speeds.

‘Securing approvals can be a confusing process and cause production delays, so we developed Share & Approve specifically for today’s high speed, and often pressured, packaging business environment. It’s often hard for the approver to envision their 2D design once finished and there is also no easy way to gather and interpret feedback from multiple stakeholders on a job without significant time delays impacting the project.’

‘We now see approval loops finishing in a maximum of eight or nine days instead of a few weeks. We have also observed the number of job revisions decreasing from as many as eight or nine to just three or four with use of the software,’ added Land.

By creating the visibility on job management, the tool provides a complete audit trail of operator actions and versioning, as well as making approval rates up to three times faster than traditional processes.

‘With Share & Approve designed as a cloud-based service, there is no IT overhead costs or efforts involved for our customers, compared to traditional in-house technologies. There is no web deployment, no servers to maintain and keep up to date, no need to provide for data security and back-up scenarios and the uptime of the service is guaranteed,’ concluded Land.