Walking around the floor at GRAPH EXPO 2011, attending the seminars, and talking to industry experts provided a clear picture of the opportunities and the issues in the industry. Between our annual Owners Conference, the Executive Outlook program, and a trip to a Xerox inkjet beta site, I spent a total of six days on the road and came away with three key messages:
- The need to build more value-added services is increasing in importance,
- The one strategy that everyone is talking about is offering more marketing services, and
- Inkjet production technology continues to evolve.
Profit Squeeze
During various presentations at this year’s GRAPH EXPO, many of our NAPL staff members made reference to our most recent economic and trends research, published in NAPL’s Strategic Perspective 2011 report, which included the issue of declining profitability. Our research panel was very clear about the profitability squeeze that is occurring as manufacturing costs go up and pricing pressure remains intact.
The third chapter of the report opens with this statement: “Once we could wait a profit squeeze out, knowing that recovery would eventually restore print demand and pricing power. Now we have to position ourselves for profitability in markets that no longer guarantee margin to anyone—no matter how big, specialized, or profitable in the past.” One way to establish that profitability position is to streamline your operations and workflow; another is to offer more value-added services.
PSP-MSP, or Selling More Marketing Services
The prevalence of presentations at GRAPH EXPO 2011 on adding marketing services was nearly inescapable. You could not walk for more than 10 minutes in any direction on the show floor without hearing interlinkONE, MindFire, or one of the many digital press manufacturers discuss social, mobile, or cross-media marketing.
InfoTrends was handing out an Executive Summary of its latest study, entitled, “The Evolution of the Cross-Media and Marketing Service Provider.” It reported that of 285 print service provider respondents, nearly 87% were either offering cross-media marketing services today or have plans to start offering them in the next 24 months.
Not to be left out, in my two GRAPH EXPO 2011 presentations I also outlined a step-by-step strategy to transition from printing services to marketing services. If you’re interested in a copy of my handout, simply email me at hfenton@napl.org and write in the subject line “PSP to MSP handout.”
Xerox Introduces CiPress Inkjet Press
At GRAPH EXPO 2011, Xerox exhibited its newest entry into the inkjet production press competition, which the company calls the CiPress 500 Production Inkjet System. It prints 500 ft. per minute, or 2,180 pages per minute in the tandem engine configuration. Xerox says it is the “world’s only high-speed waterless inkjet device” because it is based on the Tektronix solid ink, phase-change technology that you may remember from the old days, when you loaded wax sticks into a desktop printer.
A group of 18 analysts drove 4.5 hours down to a beta site in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, to learn how the technology has matured. We had the chance to talk to dmh Marketing Partners CTO Randy Seberg, who has been the champion of this project for nine months. We learned quickly that Randy is quite passionate about the new press as we debated inkjet issues.
A major motivation for dmh to work with the CiPress was its ability to use standard offset papers. The CiPress does not require paper with special coating (meaning it costs less to operate) and allows dmh to standardize its paper stock across its toner printers and offset presses. The other reason dmh chose Xerox was that it wanted a true partnership relationship, in which changes and improvements could be made.
The technology has evolved significantly; the press lays down only about half the amount of ink of the Tektronix, the ink does not rub off, and even though the ink is heated to 240º and the paper to 100º, there was none of that old Tektronix melting smell. Most importantly, it has monitors and auto correcting controls that result in uniform image quality, and the pages are not wavy or curling, so they can go through the bindery effortlessly.
According to Seberg, “The predictability and consistency is very high – the first sheet looks the same as sheet 500,000, which I could never say of an offset press.” Despite the length of the trip, the analysts agreed that it was an interesting and worthwhile excursion.
