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Cary Sherburne: Hi. I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I'm here with Jim Rosenthal who’s Chief Operating Officer at Digital Color Graphics in the Philly area. Welcome.

Jim Rosenthal: Thank you. Good to be here.

Cary Sherburne: It’s great to have you here. I wanted to just talk to you a little bit about how you’ve used technology, and specifically EFI technology, to really migrate your business, transform your business, and adjust to the market realities of today.

Jim Rosenthal: Well, so our business, you know, just as the name implies, Digital Color Graphics, involves technology. We’re not a traditional just offset printer. So from day one our goal was to be ahead of the curve in terms of how we use technology. So we’ve always tried to align ourselves with partners that we feel can help us continue down that path. So from day one really we’ve been, you know, starting with their Printsmith MIS and then sort of migrating up to EFI Pace and other products they have, we’ve been able to continue to do that, and they’ve been a great partner for us.

Cary Sherburne: Now you started out probably with Fiery, huh?

Jim Rosenthal: Yeah. Our first color device actually did have a Fiery on it. I guess there was no other way to do it at that point.

Cary Sherburne: At that point, yeah. And so if you kind of look at what’s going on, you know, as they continue to evolve those products, you have Pace. You have Digital Storefront?

Jim Rosenthal: We have Digital Storefront. We have Printflow.

Cary Sherburne: And so how has that made it easier for you to get new customers, retain existing customers? What are some of the benefits there?

Jim Rosenthal: Well, certainly from a product like Digital Storefront, it gives them sort of a much more direct plug right into us. It allows us to set our programs for them, to sort of, you know, put a wrap around our customer and keep them loyal to us, and it aids drops emission. You know, our goal is to get an order in and out as fast as possible and have it be correct 100 percent of the time. So to the extent that we can do that quickly, efficiently, and correctly, it’s great.

Cary Sherburne: So if you think about a job coming in through Digital Storefront, what percent comes in that way now?

Jim Rosenthal: It’s a growing percentage. I would say that probably—at this point it’s not a large part of our volume, but it’s an increasing number of our orders. As order sizes shrink but quantity goes up, we have to be able to handle those in a very efficient fashion, and if we can take people touches out of it we can handle a much greater quantity of jobs.

Cary Sherburne: So the ideal job that comes in through Digital Storefront, can you just—can it be almost touchless to the end?

Jim Rosenthal: That would be our goal in an ideal world. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting there. In an ideal world someone submits an order, and the next time it’s touched by human hands is taking it out of a digital device, putting it in a box, and shipping it out the door.

Cary Sherburne: That’s terrific. So we’ll be able to check back with you next year and see how far you’ve gotten down that path.

Jim Rosenthal: Absolutely.

 

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