In a recent conversation with an executive at a large print organization, he was moaning about the lack of technical expertise in his aging sales staff. In another conversation with a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of another printer, he was moaning about how his sales team was setting crazy technical expectations with their customers. 

Technology is already an important component of the print sale. I’m not talking about file transfer or artwork approval—I’m talking about the customer wanting printers to solve challenges up and downstream of the printing function. Those challenges all revolve around “data” (collecting, managing, auditing the data that ends up on the printed pieces) and then analyzing, evaluating, and adjusting strategies based on the effectiveness of the printed pieces. 

This is a big, important topic that is impacting the entire print industry—and every industry for that matter. Being “technical” used to be relegated to those “guys” who work on computers in the back of the building and whom you called when you can’t connect to WiFi or the mouse in the conference room doesn’t work.