Buying software is different than buying a press—and this comparison usually causes a lot of confusion. A press is typically a capital expenditure that is amortized over time. A press can mature to a fully-owned asset that is “effectively” free to run, kind of like a car you have paid off but you continue to drive. You still have to maintain the press (and the car) but you aren’t making payments on it anymore. This is a comfortable business model in the print industry because every print owner is used to this business model. They can swallow the big price tag(s) on new presses because they only have to eat the costs in little pieces at a time and then they can look forward to potentially higher profits downstream when the press is paid off. Press investments don’t typically disrupt your cash flow.

We have to attain this kind of comfort level around purchasing software. First and foremost, consider this idea: you are going to spend as much money on software as you do on presses. Yes, that’s what I said. You are going to spend as much money on software as you do on presses. Every print business is going to invest more and more in software because, to quote Marc Andreessen, “software is eating the world.” Software is becoming the strategic differentiator in all industries, and the print industry is no exception.  

Printers have no trouble justifying a seven-figure press investment, but debate over an online tool for saving their customers time that costs a few hundred dollars a month! This is going to change. This is going to absolutely flip. There will be many resistors (otherwise known as laggards) who will only make software investments when they are absolutely forced into it. Do you know how a printer gets forced into this change? They lose their largest customer to a competitor that actually valued their customer’s time.  I’ve seen it too many times to count. A print owner's actual quote: “None of my customers are asking for online ordering. They like our personal touch of email and phone.” That same printer, 90 days later, after they lost their very top customer, says: “My best customer just left because a competitor walked in and showed them verifiable proof that they could reduce a full headcount in managing their print spend, equating to an annual savings of $150,000.”