At Drupa 2012 Pitney Bowes provided visitors with live demonstrations of its white paper factory concept.  Here, Simon Illingworth, Product Market Manager for Production Print at Pitney Bowes, explains why white paper is not so plain anymore.

The print and mail industry never stands still.  One of the more dramatic shifts in recent months involves the growing interest in plain white paper. In this new print-to-mail environment, companies can say goodbye to pre-printed forms and start each job with blank paper and white envelopes. The reasons are simple enough: inkjet technology now delivers the speed, print quality and per-piece affordability that mailers demand.

By combining high-performance printing with data-driven, high-integrity software, you can print black and white or full colour, variable content “on-the-fly” as part of your normal print and mail production run.

Forward-thinking businesses are realising massive benefits from a white paper factory approach – not simply in cost reduction but also in revenue growth.
On the cost side of the equation, expense-reduction generally falls into three areas:

Inventory Management
A white paper strategy can eliminate the time and effort spent coordinating advance print runs. Often, pre-printed stock is over ordered because volume sizes are not known until later. Think also of the associated storage costs, and of the disruption caused when pre-printed forms or envelopes become outdated.

Job set up
Labour remains one of the largest day-to-day expenses for any print and mail operation, and finding new ways to increase productivity is critical to long-term success. By starting every job the same way—with a clean, crisp white paper—companies can avoid the time and effort spent retrieving, loading, refilling and restocking different forms and envelopes for every single job.

Job consolidation
As all of the content is data-generated and printed onto the same plain white paper, there is no limit to how many jobs you can combine.  In addition to productivity and general print efficiencies, job consolidation also opens the door for greater postal savings.

Ramp-up revenue
While it is likely that cost reductions alone would more than fund any investment in white paper technologies, the long-term profit picture on the revenue side of the equation is even more promising—especially when you look at the impact it can have on enhancing customer relationships.

Openability, real time relevance, cross-selling and up-selling – all can be significantly boosted through a white paper strategy.  When 100 percent of your content can be personalised based on customer profiles, transaction history and demographics, you can break through the noise and speak to customers as individuals, on their terms, using the most relevant offer. Colour can add impact to envelopes and documents, grabbing attention and driving response.

Creating your own white paper strategy is not an all or nothing proposition. Consider where you have the most waste and lost opportunities today; and think about which applications would benefit most from the flexibility of inline inkjet printing.

You could start anywhere - with envelopes, inserts, statements, or data. While the migration to variable print processes may be inevitable, the speed and timing are up to you. Ultimately, though, you want to have an end-game in mind—so whether your roadmap spans 18 months or 18 years—the steps you take today should support your long-term needs.