Last week, ORION Holdings, a unit of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), and Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI) announced that they have launched a strategic partnership enabling ORION Holdings to create a new unit, ORION Printing (www.orionprintingww.com). Through its partnership with Pitney Bowes, ORION Printing will focus on supplying print management solutions to IPG companies globally. For IPG marketers, this should be a welcome solution to a longstanding issue.

Most marketers are painfully aware that their closets are full of obsolete sales materials, while others are enduring their sales teams’ constant cries for up-to-date content. Nevertheless, few take any actions to increase the efficiency of their processes for ordering, storing, and delivering marketing materials.

Materials to support an organization’s sales efforts can consume a significant portion of a marketing budget. According to a recent Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council study entitled Mapping + Tracking: The Optimized Marketing Supply Chain, 30% of marketers surveyed spent 20%-30% of their budgets on producing, warehousing, and shipping printed marketing literature, packaging, documentation, point-of-sale displays, premiums, giveaways, signage, and hand-outs for all channels of market contact and engagement. Printed collateral topped the list of materials produced.