Cary Sherburne:  Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com.  And I’m here with Randy Seberg who is Vice President of Technology from dmh Marketing Partners in Iowa.

Randy Seberg:  Hi.

Cary Sherburne:  How you doin’?

Randy Seberg:  Great today.

Cary Sherburne:  So tell us a little bit about dmh Marketing Partners and what you do.

Randy Seberg:  What we do.  So we’re a non-profit mailer.  So we have multiple production operations in the U.S. and in China.  And we cater to the non-profit charity market.  We’re mailing about 2 billion pieces of mail a year.

Cary Sherburne:  Wow.

Randy Seberg:  And we deal with all the major non-profits.  Habitat for Humanity, St. Jude Children Hospital, Alzheimer’s Associations, American Heart, and American Lung, so all the majors plus a lot of the small private non-profits.  And do a lot of educational mailing for colleges.  So we try to help people raise money to further their causes.

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.  And so in your production platform, which is multinational, at least, right, multinational?

Randy Seberg:  Mm-hmm. 

Cary Sherburne:  It’s also a hybrid manufacturing.  So maybe you could talk to us a little bit about how that hybrid manufacturing platform is made up, and where you see off-set versus electrography versus inkjet fitting into the next.  

Randy Seberg:  Sure, so we have—I always tell people, if someone’s made it, we own it, so from offset, to lasers, to toners, to inkjets, and every combination in-between there.  I mean, so we’re in continuous monochrome cut sheet, four color digital, 11 offset presses and multiple widths cut sheet presses.  And then also the newest member of the platform is the Xerox CiPress 500.  

Cary Sherburne:  That’s the inkjet?

Randy Seberg:  The inkjet side of it. 

Cary Sherburne:  Yep.

Randy Seberg:  And so that’s a big, what we think’s a great move for us.  Is that we can start to use that technology that Xerox is giving us, which is the waterless inkjet world, to keep our same paper sub straight that we use in offset presses and run it right in the inkjet world.

Cary Sherburne:  Oh that’s great.

Randy Seberg:  So we have great flexibility.  The inks are vibrant, so as they are waterless, they sit on top of the paper, so you get the ability to manage your ink cost better than through even an offset process where you have saturation and a lot of those.  Taking some of the ink away from what the customer can see.

Cary Sherburne:  Right.

Randy Seberg:  So, we find that transitional move from offset shelves, lasering, to an inkjet world is coming faster than what I thought.

Cary Sherburne:  Really?

Randy Seberg:  To my customers.

Cary Sherburne:  As a result of the CiPress?  

Randy Seberg:  Right, because as a result of the CiPress.  Because they’re seeing that what they thought was going to be marginal quality is turning into be very good quality.

Cary Sherburne:  Mm-hmm.

Randy Seberg:  And the time to market goes so much quicker for them.  So It’s a timing, cost gets to be controlled, but the quality, and output, and consistency is as high if not higher than with the offset press.

Cary Sherburne:  So they’re able to maintain their brand image and improve their time to market.

Randy Seberg:  Mm-hmm.  And so on the other side that really helps the customer, the side of the customer.  Because that’s where we all want to focus on is the customer.

Cary Sherburne:  Right, right absolutey right.

Randy Seberg:  In the offset world, I’m going to mail for the year a million pieces.  So I’m going to print all that million and hold it.

Cary Sherburne:  Right.

Randy Seberg:  Well, with the inkjet I don’t have to do that because my color...

Cary Sherburne:  Right, you can do a million pieces, but…

Randy Seberg:  I’ll do a million pieces but I’ll do it every month, every week.  And my consistency is so good they can’t tell one week from week 52.

Cary Sherburne:  And it’s the whole print on demand story, right, because inventory costs are non-existent.  

Randy Seberg:  Correct.

Cary Sherburne:  Plus they have the flexibility and freedom to change their message.

Randy Seberg:  Just change their message as they go.  So for them it’s that educational process now.  So part of what we’re doing, and Xerox is helping us go through this process is to learn how to change.  Because everybody talks about change, but to learn to change is really a hard thing to do.

Cary Sherburne:  Right, throughout the whole organization.

Randy Seberg:  Throughout their whole organization.

Cary Sherburne:  And then in terms of workflow, what’s going on there?

Randy Seberg:  So we use GMC, for the process.  And, again, Xerox has stepped forward and partnered with GMC to help change the workflow.  Because inkjet’s a little different, and as you deal with all this process, to be able to give us a product that is very usable in helping our customers prosper.

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.

Randy Seberg:  And so, as you delight those customers, it makes everything go better.

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great, fabulous.  It sounds like a fun business to be in.

Randy Seberg:  It’s a great business.