Web-to-print, variable data, digital printing, high-speed inkjet, mobile technology, and social media have already begun to change the competitive landscape for the printing industry. Your customers are asking you for more at faster speeds and with more transparency. While you can innovate faster, so can your competitors. In short, everything is compressed, including decision cycles, reaction cycles, innovation cycles, and customer service cycles. At the end of last year, John M. Bernard published a book entitled Business at the Speed of Now: Fire up Your People, Thrill Your Customers, and Crush Your Competitors. This book states that the ability to understand emergent issues and act upon them with appropriate speed will mark the difference between the winners and losers. That is what is happening in the printing industry today.

Of 192 printers that InfoTrends surveyed, 37% are currently using social media in their businesses.

Although Bernard’s book is a quick read, it contains some of the best management insight with specific examples of how “now businesses” need to respond. Bernard notes, “Businesses need to learn how to function in the biggest economic shift ever. The mass-production revolution (that was then) made it possible for businesses to deliver the same product to millions of customers. The mass-customization revolution (this is now) demands that we vary our products and services to meet the unique needs of our customers who want what they want NOW.” Businesses must act quickly, or they run the risk of losing out to more nimble competitors. They need to conduct business at the speed of now.