Making the Most of Industry Resources

Even before the latest economic downturn, there has been concern in many parts of the industry as to whether or not we are making the best use of our limited resources. We've been hearing rumors that something is afoot in the Association world on this topic, so we reached out to Joe Truncale, CEO of NAPL, to get the inside scoop. He said, "We do recognize what is taking place in the industry; you would have to be blind not to. The structural change we were already undergoing is being accelerated by this economic situation, and vendors, manufacturers and our members are all looking for help. NAPL has a long history of anticipating significant developments, changes in the business climate and trends which shape our industry’s future, and we plan to take an active role in seeking a more collaborative and less competitive means of working together."

NAPL is starting strategic discussions internally this summer, and Truncale expects that the various associations will begin working together on this issue after Print 09 concludes. "Right now, everyone is focused on making the show a success in addition to the work we do day in and day out," he added. "We believe there are opportunities here, and we can't afford to ignore them. At the very least, in the short term anyway, our expectation is that we will arrive at a more cooperative way of working. That will be a benefit to all of the constituencies of our respective organizations."

According to Truncale, although NAPL is doing well and is a year ahead of growth targets established three years ago, the resources available to these organizations are much different than in the past. Areas of cooperation and collaboration could include such things as combining resources for events, meetings, seminars and conferences; programs to attract young people to careers in the industry and support our education institutions; as well as larger issues that go beyond the resources of any one organization to tackle, including postal concerns, do not mail initiatives and understanding and anticipating how emerging generations want to deal with communications and information. "The challenges are numerous and significant," he says, "in an indistry that is already being challenged. We will be actively seeking and promoting collaboration and cooperation, and we look forward to working with all interested industry groups to determine what future changes are needed to best serve our members, clients and all industry stakeholders."

Here's your chance to weigh in. How do you think things should be structured to make the best use of our limited resources? Where should these groups focus if they are going to collaborate on key issues? Let's get a conversation going so they have our input as they start working through what are likely to be some very challenging conversations.

Discussion

By George Fry on May 27, 2009

First of all the article is right on target in at least understanding the scope of the challenges facing our industry. We all need to accept one fact which may be very difficult to grasp and deal with and that is we are not going back to the so called good old days. Our economic future and what makes up the engines that drive it are being formed as we speak. Creating vertical markets and exploring opportunities to do business in various ways will be key to our industrys future. Abetter understanding of our customers needs will be vital, the skill set to explain our objectives with them will have to rise to the occasion, which exposes our real problem, the inabaility or skill set to discuss those possibilities with our customers. The days of hope and quote are gone and it is that very premise that has comprimised our industry. Also printers are as a whole suspicious of new things because of not understanding what the solutions are based on. Cost will always be with us but we need to communicate better with our customers the value we can deliver to them. Our company is growing very well because we offer these opportunities to them but by no means do we have it figured out. We are constantly trying new things and the print providers we deal with are willing to open their minds to new solutions. In conclusion I am happy to see the dialogue being opened and encourage everyone to participate because alone we can not affect things properly, but together we can solve these challenges and move forward as an industry.

By Michael J on May 27, 2009

Since you ask ....
1. Focus efforts on managing regional proof of concept projects for the most innovative ways of using print. The particular project in the particular region would depend on the needs of the printers in that region.

The challenge will be to get printers to be able to be open about best practices and what works. But the NAPL and other associations should be the right folks to break through that legacy culture.

2. Stop trying to fight Do Not Mail. That's fighting the last war.Instead demonstrate ways to get the right person the right information at the right time. Interesting offers magically turn junk mail into valued mail. Maybe work with the USPS to do a series of proof of concepts. I think that's what they are doing in the UK.

3. Put lobbying efforts on getting to G4 networks as soon as possible. Again a proof of concept to show how print connected to wireless changes the landscape. The stuff going on in Tokyo with Samsung demonstrates the power of G4.

4. Get into the Technical Education business. The High Schools and most Community Colleges don't have the skills or the connections to get this right. Consider mentored apprenticeship[ programs. Old timers to mentor. In place teachers to manage the kids face to face. Again no advertising or marketing. Put all the resources into proof of concepts.

5. Change the business model from running big shows and selling information to Printers. Instead do a deal to earn some benefits if the proof of concept engagements scale.

By Clint Bolte on Jun 01, 2009

The days of competing associations trying to clone topical educational venues is gone. Suppliers simply cannot afford to sponsor such duplication of efforts.

As service providers diversify across complementary and supplementary service offerings they need to join more and more specialty associations.

This is too expensive to both parties - member firms and associations.

Real opportunities for collaboration leading to consolidation of admin services. It should not have taken a crappy economy to force such common sense approach.

A prime example is the implementation of the USPS's Intelligent Mail barcode concept. The members of both NAPL and PIA are on the bleeding edge of software impetus, but neither association has any credibility in this arena. IDEAlliance, of course, designed Mail.dat and Mail.XML but they really don't have the reach into the small to medium-sized service providers. Only MFSA seems to have the breadth and depth to address this issue on everyone's behalf.

Hope the politics don't squelch this opportunity...