Print Management Blog
Fri, 30 Jan 2009
I attended the IPIA conference on "The Revolution of Sustainable, Profitable Printing" at the Ricoh Stadium Coventry yesterday. The conference was addressing the question of what it is that a modern printer needs to do to survive and grow in the current, difficult & competitive marketplace. This was attended by both printers and print management companies (PMC's) so a lively debate ensued.
It was glaringly obvious that business success is not about having the best production kit, but about having a process to manage sales. The speakers felt (and to be fair the audience seemed to agree) that in most cases the print business focus is NOT on Customers and profitable growth, and trying to compete on price is the way to bankruptcy. More sales of a better quality drive profit, not better machinery.
In many ways I felt reassured rather than dismayed. Businesses only fail because they don't sell enough. Full stop. We have been banging on for a couple of years about how more sales of a better quality will come from differentiating yourself and understanding your customers needs using decent CRM which leads to closer working relationships. Use web based technology this way to drive profits, and ROI on Business Builder is in weeks not months or years. And yet we still speak to businesses that think nothing of spending Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds on production kit but baulk at systems for a fraction of the cost that will make more difference to their business than anything else they spend money on. Perhaps because if you have 50 tons of metal in your factory it looks more valuable?
It's about a change to a customer centric approach to how you run your business. That has nothing to do with your production kit and everything to do with selling more.
What do you think?
Fri, 23 Jan 2009
Putting in either a new print admin or sales and marketing system for the first time seems like a cost you could do without at the moment. Which on the face of it, makes sense. But the fact is, staff cost more than technology.
So would generating sales and reducing overheads using better technology be a cost, or a saving?
With Business Builder 4 Print web based modular systems we don't care whether your issues are dead simple CRM or complete workflow systems, and nothing has to be installed on any site.
Fri, 16 Jan 2009
Click
HERE for link to the BPIF report on the market conditions for printers.
"SEASONAL CHEER IN SHORT SUPPLY - TRADE EXPECTED TO WORSEN"
This is why you should speak to us about a web based print management system for every or any aspect of getting everything you can out of your sales opportunities. Low cost, easy to implement, fastest ROI you'll ever invest in.
Fri, 09 Jan 2009
A new year begins and after the festivites of Christmas wear off, the issue of a recession rears its ugly head once more. If there's one thing we've noticed during the 'credit crunch', it's that companies in the print industry are definitely split into two camps:
Those who want to batton up the hatches, tighten the purse strings and wait it out, and those who want to invest in technology rather than people to improve the print management process (and reduce the wage bill!)
Which camp do you belong to?
