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Innovate Incessantly: From the Printing Press to a Streamlined Workflow, It’s All About Agility

The gap between early adopters and laggards continues to widen. Weighed down by the technical debt and disconnectedness of legacy systems, many print companies are investing precious capital and time in course-correcting their technology strategy. B2B customer expectations of user experience are increasingly blurred with the B2C ease of online shopping. Thus, the print service providers who can tightly align with emerging customer expectations will own the future. The answer to this growing problem is to establish a new agility within your operation.

Monday, April 12, 2021

Innovation has powered the advancement of people, civilizations, nations, and businesses for ages. Easily one of the greatest innovations of all time gave rise to the print industry: the Gutenberg press. It not only improved an existing process, but expedited the process of print and democratization of information so remarkably that it is credited for ushering in the Age of Enlightenment. For centuries, the printing press had been so influential in business, politics, religion, and science that Mark Twain would write, “What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg.”

In the modern age the impact of innovation, comparatively moving at light-speed, is measured in hours and days, not centuries. Digital transformation, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is advancing at a mind-numbing pace. In the print industry, technology advances bring promise of propelling new digital integration, seamless workstreams, marketplace convergence, down-market reach, and extreme personalization.

While advances may be enlightening to some, the delta between the early adopters and the laggards continues to widen. Weighed down by the technical debt and disconnectedness of legacy systems, many print companies are investing precious capital and time in course-correction of their technology strategy. B2B customer expectations of user-experience is increasingly blurred with the B2C ease of online shopping and near real-time availability of order information. Thus, the print service providers who can tightly align with emerging customer expectations will own the future.


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About Preston Herrin

Preston Herrin is a growth and performance consultant. He has enjoyed a successful leadership and executive management career spanning the manufacturing, e-commerce, software, and logistics sectors.

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