The production print market can be competitive, so dealers might win or lose opportunities depending on how well they add value to their customers’ production print operations—for example, by integrating production print in new ways with other processes or applications. “At the beginning, support should start with print service and workflow assessments,” said Lucia Perez, marketing manager, in-plant for Xerox Corporation. “Then the dealer can help the customer develop customized applications or use business development tools to grow volume.” She also recommends ongoing service and maintenance check-ins and troubleshooting, as well as providing automatic system updates.
Lucia Perez, Xerox
Sometimes adding value is a matter of optimizing a system for a vertical market or application. Marketing is one area where insiders see potential for specialization and growth. “You will start to see even more personalization and customization options from the print industry make their mark in digital marketing,” said Perez. She also sees a potential for more multi-channel communications capabilities to maximize touchpoints with clients.
For Erik Holdo, senior vice president of production print solutions at Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc., capitalizing on marketing applications for production print means integrating it with the right software. The goal, says Holdo, is to “bring in planning and analytics platforms that allow you to walk into a CMO’s office and provide a solution that is going to make his job easier and more effective by giving him the ability to do predictive analytics on future sales based on any marketing tactic they may be using.”
Erik Holdo, Konica Minolta
The marketing tactics Holdo refers to might be direct mail, social media, email blasts or microsites. “We then have a marketing execution platform for the delivery of those omni-channel campaigns. The first step is to bring value to that brand owner or CMO and help them understand what’s available that really has not been available to small to medium sized marketers in the past. That’s one area where we’ve built an entire portfolio of marketing services, so build software services,” said Holdo.
Holdo also sees opportunity in providing “proper production management.” He explained: “In the old days, you’d have a production schedule board on the wall, and your job jackets. That transitions to a lot of manual and homegrown solutions around very specific workflows. On the production management side, it’s about being able to manage multiple types of products in the production space with all the analytics behind it and a common dashboard to see all the disparate workflows. This allows you to handle automation with that same product that’s much more powerful and compelling, and it lets you build more volume with your existing devices.”
He added that Konica Minolta has rolled out an offering that is available to dealers to do lean workflow assessments using lean manufacturing concepts. This way, dealers can capture real waste and any non-value-added steps that are being taken. In turn, this reduces waste, making customers more self-sufficient.
The list of possible value-added services is long: decoration, spot or dimensional UV, and variable foiling to name a few. Soft proofing on packaging that shows real-life views of what a printed piece will look like will also become more important. Soft proofing allows customers to boost interest and volume in specialty work, as well as increase the volume of specialty work.
Upselling these services can be a challenge for dealers, as they require expertise in the technology and understanding of where the technology is best applied. Production print OEMs typically have internal resources that they will share with the channel, however, and dealers should consider taking advantage of these resources.
