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Peter Drucker, the father of business consulting, stated that the business enterprise has only two basic functions—marketing and innovation. This article discusses how print service providers can leverage Drucker’s advice to improve their businesses. It also provides real-world examples from DME, Sandy Alexander, and the University of Iowa.
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About Barb Pellow
A digital printing and publishing pioneer, marketing expert and Group Director at InfoTrends, Barbara Pellow helps companies develop multi-media strategies that ride the information wave. Barb brings the knowledge and skills to help companies expand and grow business opportunity.
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Discussion
By James Olsen on Oct 14, 2010
It is obvious that the most successful marketing services providers are those who most effectively put new technology to work to meet their customers' needs. To do that, they need to completely understand the technological capabilities and those customers' needs. Then the trick (it's not really a trick) is to be able to put their imagination to work and devise unique applications of the technology.
This is called creativity - and, unfortunately, many printers, and printers' reps, don't view themselves as being creative and certainly don't view themselves as marketers. There are answers to that dilemma. First, a printing firm isn't just buildings and equipment, it is also composed of human beings who can be augmented with other people who are indeed creative and innovative. Second, and this is key, those who view themselves as "non-creative" can learn to be creative. Creativity can be learned as attested to by David Kord Murray in his book "Borrowing Brilliance". It contains six steps to business innovation by building on the ideas of others.
It is a book that can give many a main line printer hope in this new digital world.