Document service bureaus are going to lead the way in VI printing--if they can figure out color.

Just before the holidays I pointed out the need for vendors to do their part in developing a market for digital printing, especially variable data or VI (variable information) printing. But whether vendors take the initiative or not, VI--the unique capability of digital printing--is going to grow, and among the leaders of the charge are the guys who have been doing VI since Moses wore knickers: document service bureaus and direct mail companies.

These printers of countless statements, invoices, trade confirms, prospectuses, utility bills, and most of the other mail regarding the dollars and cents of life know variable data. They can pull data from multiple datastreams, slice, dice, format, print, and mail VI documents with 100% data-to-mail integrity. Their customers, household names in financial services, insurance, healthcare, utilities, retail, and credit cards are looking to place marketing messages on the real estate of documents sent out every month. After all, the marketing folks know that while direct mail offers may not get opened, everyone opens their bills, statements and other financial mailings.

So it would seem that these service bureau guys are ideally positioned to handle the marketing side of VI. Except for one thing. As a group, they are unfamiliar with color.

While many have highlight color printers from IBM, Océ and Xerox, their color awareness is limited to a handful of spot colors. One group I spoke to last year was largely unaware of the difference between RGB and CMYK, and oblivious to the issues of color management. But although some like to joke, 'We already print in two colors: black and white,' they know change is afoot. They see the day in three years or so when digital color is less expensive. It won't be as cheap as black toner, but (when realistically priced) the gap between the two will shrink, so that digital color will be a much more viable alternative for many customers. When that happens VI color printing will transition from being limited to the financial documents of "high-value" customers to use in credit card statements and phone bills far more customized to the recipients.

This lack of color savvy is hardly an insurmountable issue: it's much easier for a service bureau to hire designers who understand color than it is for the average commercial printer to hire and keep people who can understand databases and how to integrate variable text and images into marketing materials. Color has long been a key issue in printing and there are plenty of support materials and software to ease some of the stresses of the printing process. And service bureau owners are generally smart people who "get" technology.

Now consider this. As service bureaus and direct mailers learn new tricks, commercial printers with digital presses become vulnerable. Presses like the Heidelberg/NexPress 2100, Xerox's DocuColor 2060 and its forthcoming iGen3, or an Indigo or Xeikon engine in the hands of a VI-savvy service bureau could easily begin pulling marketing work from commercial print shops with digital presses. Some already are.

As various pundits have noted, 'He who has the data wins,' and document service bureaus are clearly in the lead. Their regular reach into our homes and businesses and easy familiarity with customizing and personalizing documents gives them a significant advantage over commercial printers looking for a piece of the digital printing pie. So while the graphic arts market would appear to be the logical place for growth in digital color printing, the most significant growth is more likely to come from the guys who send out the bills we pay every month. The challenge they face is melding the skills of the designer with the complexities of text, numerical, and image databases, in ways that add the greatest value to documents. And you can bet they are up to the challenge.