Printing is and always has been a service industry.  It is especially easy to lose sight of this fact in 2008, however, because this is a “drupa year”—the one year in four when drupa, the world’s largest printing-equipment exhibition, convenes in Düsseldorf, Germany.  This May and June, as always, drupa plied printers with an unparalleled selection of advanced tools to upgrade their manufacturing operations with technology.

By no means do we dispute the fact that printers need the right equipment and drivers.  But we’re writing this article to point out the equal if not greater importance of managing the service end of the business.  The reasoning behind this strategy is that printing is not just a manufactured product; rather, it is CUSTOM manufactured.  And this reality requires you constantly to envision not your equipment but your customer and the service component of the business as the vital center of your operations.  Moreover, we want to suggest that any company, regardless of size, should not only start viewing printing and its products as the outcome of service, but also revise its hiring criteria accordingly to emphasize the service aspect of the business.

Commodity manufacturing is price-driven. Historically there has always been a country somewhere in the world that has eroded North-American commodity manufacturing primarily because it has access to a less expensive labor force. Arguably, modern China and India are the most dramatic and broad-reaching such examples.  In response, North America has essentially advanced its economy by developing its expertise in logistics to deliver goods manufactured elsewhere.  Not surprisingly, job-creation statistics in both the US and Canada consistently show hiring growth in the service sectors, offset by considerable hiring shrinkage in the manufacturing sectors.