Lexington, Kentucky USA -- WhatTheyThink today reported that its free printing industry educational webinar. Harnessing Technology for Business Growth: Helping Marketers Unify the Customer Experience, drew good attendance. The event, held on June 24^th, 2009, was led by WhatTheyThink Senior Editor Cary Sherburne and sponsored by GMC Software The archive of the session may be accessed at the webinar archive page.

“Our panel for this session consisted of two printing executives from the UK,” said Sherburne. “It was interesting to hear that the issues and concerns they face are quite similar to those facing printing operations in North America.  Each has taken a different path to move their businesses into the future, and to help their marketing professional customers address today’s very real business communications problems. We appreciate their generosity in spending time with our listeners and in sharing sage advice for others facing similar issues and concerns.”

Sherburne was joined by

• Darren Crawford, Managing Director, Data & Digital Services, The 4DM Group. Crawford has responsibility for the data and digital services division at 4DM. He is a main board director and shareholder of the company.  With over twenty years experience in IT, including time in the oil industry, paper merchanting, and software development, Darren has been working in the direct marketing industry for the last ten years. Darren's current role brings him into contact with customers, enabling 4DM to deliver a tailored service to meet their personalised communication needs.
• Richard Coulson, Founding Member, Incisive Solutions. With significant experience in marketing lead IT solutions Richard can claim to have pioneered many firsts – the first magazine with personalised inner and outer pages, development of the first mortgage statement to include personalised messaging, the first full colour magazine with variable personalised graphics as well as text. Previous positions include General Manager with Spectrum Data Services; Group IT Director with Communisis plc and most recently Technical Director with Capita Communications prior to being a founding member of Incisive Solutions.

“This session spent a fair amount of time delving into the issue of sales skills, training and sourcing of qualified staff,” said Randy Davidson, President, WhatTheyThink.  “Our panelists have tackled this issue by implementing innovative practices, such as creating a strategic sales team to go after more sophisticated program-based work, and seeking sales professionals who have experience in the vertical markets their businesses are targeting.  We appreciate the fact that GMC Software Technology sponsored this important session, allowing us to make it available at no charge.”

About GMC Software Technology

GMC Software Technology helps businesses implement high impact, personalized communications programs that increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, drive new customer acquisition, improve productivity and cut costs. Our award-winning PrintNet software is an easy to implement, end-to-end solution that provides full data integration and processing, design and composition, collaboration and approval, distributed output management and process automation for highly targeted print and electronic communications. GMC offers exceptionally reliable technologies and services based on worldwide ISO 9001:2000 certification and CMMI development methodology. We serve thousands of users worldwide and many of our customers are producing in excess of 100 million personalized documents per month — including direct mail, statements, bills, policies, catalogs, correspondence and transpromo materials. www.gmc.net.

GMC Software Technology continues to add to its tally of industry awards. Most recently, in March 2009, Xplor International awarded the company “Technology Application of the Year” for a second year in a row. In 2008, the European Digital Press Association (EDP) named GMC “Best Special Application Software of the Year.”

About WhatTheyThink.com

WhatTheyThink is the printing and publishing industry's leading media organization; offering a wide range of publications delivering unbiased, real-time market intelligence, industry news, economic and trend analysis, peer-to-peer communication, and special reports on emerging technology and critical events. WhatTheyThink also hosts webinars and live events that are timely and relevant o today's busy industry executives along with consulting and speaker services that leverage a talented pool of writers and industry analysts.

WhatTheyThink consists of flagship site WhatTheyThink.com, discussion forum site PrintPlanet.com, and industry blog PrintCEO.com.

About Cary Sherburne

Cary Sherburne has been a Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and a marketing communications consultant since 2002.  She is a well-known journalist, author and strategic marketing consultant working primarily with the printing and publishing industry. Prior to launching her consulting practice, Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. She also served as a Director at CAP Ventures (now InfoTrends), an internationally known firm specializing in market research and strategic consulting for the digital document and print on demand industry, where she launched and managed the company’s Document Outsourcing Consulting Service. Sherburne has written six books, the last of which is No-Nonsense Innovation: Practical Strategies for Success, co-authored with Bill Lowe, the Father of the IBM PC, available on Amazon.com.

Sherburne can be reached at [email protected].