ORLANDO, Florida - More printers are taking part in this year’s VUE/POINT Conference in Orlando, FL, than participated in the previous edition in Washington, DC -- and in Monday morning’s opening session they got a thorough tour of what some leading companies are doing to grow and compete in a more demanding marketplace. Five executives took part in the opening panel session on the topic, “What Kind of Business Do I Want to Be?” at the Hilton Hotel in the Walt Disney World Resort. This is the first time VUE/POINT has been held outside of the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and the increased printer participation includes a large number of first time attendees. Steven Amiel, senior vice president of Unimac/SCI, reported that “the growth part of our business right now is on the packaging side. He said Unimac has recently added several large presses and a die-cutter to equip it to serve packaging printing customers more effectively. Al Kennickell, president of Kennickell Print, Direct Mail and Fulfillment, described how his company’s diversification into mailing and fulfillment has helped it deliver higher value to customers and serve customers nationwide from its Savannah, GA location. “Different opportunities pop up all the time,” once a company decides to move in a new direction, Kennickell said. However, he cautioned, “it takes a while to learn to do things well.” Moving into direct mail and fulfillment has enabled the company to expand its data management services to clients and to help them gain better control of their inventories. Amiel also reported that “a big category today is fulfillment.” He described how Unimac obtained approval from the State of New Jersey to handle certain kinds of pharmaceutical products in its plant, and how this approval helped differentiate the company and enable it to gain a foothold on the state’s large and important pharmaceutical industry. Michael Graff, executive vice president of Sandy Alexander, reported that “personalization is booming in the business today. He described how his company, a major multi-state commercial printer, added digital printing and variable data capabilities to take advantage of these growth opportunities. Sandy Alexander has seen 20 percent compounded annual growth in recent years in personalized printing. Client education has been critical to growth for LaVigne, Inc., according to president Chris Wells. Wells noted his company works with clients to move large volumes of their routine printing into an on-demand, variable-data environment. “The biggest challenge has been user adoption,” he says, adding that LaVigne has developed co-marketing programs with its clients to persuade users within their organizations to take advantage of the new tools. He also emphasized that LaVigne tries to avoid projects that, although they make effective use of variable data techniques, are basically “one-offs” with no potential to be easily repeated. “We’re looking for things that are highly scalable,” he added. Steven Ebanks, owner of Xerographics Digital Printing in Orlando, said his company has worked to grow beyond dealing only with print buyers within client organizations. Promoting variable data digital printing and database services has meant that “we’ve gone from dealing with print buyers and documentation departments to dealing with marketing departments and with corporate management,” Ebanks said. VUE/POINT is an annual conference presented by the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC), focusing on practical experience and user perspectives concerning the critical trends and key technological developments in the printing, publishing and converting industries.