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In 1978, Gregory Muzzillo and a college friend founded Proforma because they saw an opportunity to start a business with no capital investment. Print distributors are independent agents that sell the services of printing firms. This article discusses how Proforma expanded its business and those of its customers by moving to a visionary franchise model. Read More
Given present trends, the industry could be dominated by a relative handful of firms in a few years. Some companies can grow profitably into this new landscape. Others can make a safe exit before it fully unfolds. Each outcome demands a strategy-now. Read More
Will inkjet ink prices come down? Sean Smyth of Digital Demand World, the publication for the digital print industry, looks at the current trends Read More
The Fed took a look at the economy last week and panicked. In printing industry terms, they increased their run lengths and their page counts, and there's more money printing on the way. It's not much, just $1.4 trillion. What's a few billion dollars amongst friends? Read More
Web-to-print has to become the set of tools that enable printers to be competitive on the web. This is a whole lot more than a B2B business card site. It requires us to rethink the way we shop for solutions and partners. Read More
Over the years there has been an enormous amount of discussion about how the Internet "killed" the newspaper industry. I do not believe that it is a true statement - at least the murder did not take place as a cause and effect relationship. Read More
For the majority of its 65-year history, Bridgeport National Bindery (Agawam, MA) established its name by providing bookbinding. In 2003, Bridgeport began printing to satisfy the demand for single-run production. This article outlines how BNB has evolved its services to meet customers' changing needs. Read More
In last week's feature, guest writer Dan Marx outlined five "essential truths" about wide-format printing, and in his introduction he mentioned that he's witnessed "a full-blown revolution: a complete movement away from old-school analog technology." Over the past several months, as I have spoken to equipment manufacturers and suppliers for these weekly features, as well as other analysts, one thing that always comes up is the fact that more and more traditional printing companies are expanding into wide-format printing Read More
This white paper deals with some of the most immediately beneficial strategies that leaders can pursue in increasing their opportunities to survive and thrive. We show how to make an immediate impact and how to improve your long-term business fundamentals. Read More
Dr. Joe explains last Friday's employment report, takes a look at employment in our industry, and explains why ad agency revenues are going up when everything else seems to be going down. Speaking of down, sit down before you read his comments about the latest recovery indicators. Yes, Dr. Doom seems to have infiltrated this column, again. Read More
Optimizing the performance of your sales organization can be accomplished by great strategy and superior execution but if you don't begin with the best talent available, successfully executing your strategy will be comprised. And you won't be able to identify, recruit and select the best talent if you don't have a structured, effective set of processes in place. Read More
Like many other local companies, Pel Hughes was affected by Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath of the hurricane, the company transformed itself from a traditional commercial printer into a marketing service provider. This article outlines the services that Pel Hughes offers its customers and also explores its success with "Drip Marketing" campaigns. Read More
Dan Marx, Vice President Markets & Technologies, SGIA, draws out some "essential truths"-real kernels of wisdom-that can benefit any company looking to enter wide-format or grow their existing efforts in this area. Read More
Food packaging safety is become a more prominent area in the United States. Insuring that chemicals and odors do not penetrate the package is of great importance to the end customer. Sun Chemical has designed a system of products and procedures to do this. Read More
Workflow automation has the potential to help both print providers and print buyers boost productivity and save money, and yet it is one of the most under-utilized software category today. Read More
Caslon, the management company of PODi, the digital printing initiative, recently analyzed PODi case studies in the financial services industry to determine if there are common challenges and interesting solutions for those challenges. Read More
Senior Editor Cary Sherburne recently had the opportunity to visit two X-Rite and PANTONE locations, in Grand Rapids MI and Tewksbury MA, respectively, including hands-on with X-Rite instrumentation, a tour of the manufacturing floor, discussions with software engineers, and time with the company’s CEO Tom Vacchiano. Read More
Ricoh recently made a significant investment in PTI Marketing Technologies. Barb Pellow interviewed two company executives to garner a better understanding of the implications of this transaction. Read More
In last week’s feature, we spoke about flatbed wide-format printers, and remarked that one of their big selling points was that they could print on a bewildering variety of materials—increasing the number of applications that creative shops could develop, the more niches shops could carve out for themselves, and the better they could serve their clients. Read More
The effectiveness of your recruiting, hiring and promoting strategies has a definitive impact on revenue and profit streams. In a time of industry transformation, when high performing employees are required, it is even more critical that you examine and re-engineer the processes you use to hire talented sales professionals. Read More
With price pressure and volume reductions being forecast for print, the industry it is on the lookout for new opportunities. Adding electronic capability has been on the horizon for many years. After a hiatus instigated by the global slowdown, there are encouraging examples of how print might evolve to create new high-value print products. Read More
Recent news from HP has been turbulent, raising questions about the status of the company’s graphics business. Some light was shed last week at a customer event at HP’s Graphic Arts Experience Center. Read More
In approaching integration, businesses must consider scope and scale, choose between internal versus external execution, and address the associated technical issues to ensure an effective end-result. Given the complexity of the systems integration process and the systems that need to work together, printers may need to seek systems partners rather than walking away from opportunities. This article covers strategies for success when utilizing external systems integration resources. Read More
Since the advent of the wide-format printing market in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the vast majority of the output devices on the market have been rollfed devices, printing on flexible substrates like paper or canvas that unfurled into the device, rather like a web press. The finished graphic was then often mounted onto a rigid material for display, installation, or other end use. Read More
Andy gives his take on why he thinks Heidelberg has made the decision to withdrawl from Ipex 2014 Read More
Don't be uncertain about the risks of reading Dr. Joe's column about risk and uncertainty. It's not often he gets to use the word “actuarial” in a column about printing. Everyone thinks they know what ROI means, but just one little letter makes a big difference. Read More
With this fifteenth article of the series, David begins to look at companies and their ‘future’ production inkjet offerings and applications. In this article he looks at Komori, its products and apparently new role in the sheetfed inkjet space. Read More
Who do we respect most in business? The individuals or companies who talk the best game or the individuals or companies who execute? Read More
Although awareness and adoption of QR Codes and other mobile response technologies is growing, there are a number of challenges associated with driving audience interaction and adoption. Best practices are coming to light as companies continue to utilize QR Codes more effectively, leaving little room for excuses when delivering a poor experience to the target audience. Conducting rigorous testing before launching a campaign will help create a great experience that generates results. Read More
This week, we’re going to take a step back from our look at the nuts and bolts of wide-format printing technology and look at the industry and the economy from “20,000 feet”—and hopefully not have a William Shatner-esque experience. Read More
A pent-up eagerness for deals makes it all the more important for those venturing back into the M&A marketplace as sellers to be clear about why they should sell—and why buyers should want to acquire them. Read More
Dr. Joe's glad he didn't buy Facebook stock, and explains why the company's stock price matters little to media decision-makers. And then there's the magazine circulation thing. Why is everyone so surprised that it's down? Yet again he rails about inflation, but at least he has some fresh new inflation multipliers to annoy company controllers and CFOs Read More
Yesterday I read an article by David Winograd that discusses from his point of view the Problem with Magazines and The iPad. The author has some serious observations about why the magazines on the iPad don’t work for him and no doubt for many others. The problems are mostly hardware/software related, and I am here to tell you that these problems will be completely solved in just a few short years. Read More
Savvy businesses know that they can build a loyal customer base by providing extraordinary value-added customer service. This article references recent industry research to describe how print service providers can improve loyalty by becoming strategically important to their customers. Read More
Richard provides some features and issues to keep a special eye out for when looking at RIP's for wide-format printing. Read More
Andy gives a followup on some of the responses he received to a recent article where he commented on HP’s decision not to exhibit at the IPEX trade show in 2014. Read More
The role of the sales person has dramatically changed and companies are struggling with how they recruit, hire, compensate, train and manage these essential employees. In order to address this challenge a systematic approach should be designed and implemented. In this series of articles we will address this challenge. Read More
Digital postal mail system provider Zumbox recently announced that it had secured $10 million in Series C capital, bringing total capital raised to $28 million. What’s driving the interest on the part of investors? Senior Editor Cary Sherburne speaks with Zumbox to learn more. Read More
ORION Holdings and Pitney Bowes have launched a strategic partnership enabling ORION Holdings to create a new unit, ORION Printing. Through its partnership with Pitney Bowes, ORION Printing will focus on supplying print management solutions to IPG companies globally. This article discusses the actions that marketers can take to increase the efficiency of their processes for ordering, storing, and delivering marketing materials. Read More
Selling print is a commodity business. In search of higher margins, the mantra is to become a Solutions Provider, aka Marketing Services Provider. Unfortunately the terminology seems to take on many meanings and the message gets diluted. Read More
Those new to wide-format printing—and even some veterans—often give short shrift to what happens to a print once it comes off press. In wide-format printing, however, the real added value is often in the finishing. Read More
