All the bells and whistles in the world can help you produce a better product; the hard part is how to fill up the press. Equipment suppliers are positioning themselves as guides to help printers make money out of machines. Increasingly the pitch is not just about the box, but about thinking outside the box to bring in profits. All the major digital vendors are playing in this space.

At worst, printers see this as a cynical way for suppliers to leverage another ongoing revenue stream from their customers. At best, these business development tools could be an effective and accessible way to avoid the commodity trap and enter lucrative new markets. 

Business development resources can be software or a blend of software and live training, advice or other assistance, to help printers derive the most from their capital investment. One common thread is to provide printing companies with advice on how to ascend the chain to where agencies and their clients are devising the marketing and advertising concepts. 

Dscoop (Digital Solutions Cooperative) is an affiliation of printers and technical professionals using HP Indigo or Scitex equipment. It educates its members and networks them with one another and with HP. The vendor provided seed funding and customers have taken it from there (HP remains a partner and board member). Dscoop Asia-Pacific and Japan was founded in 2009 to cover this region, the second such group after the launch of Dscoop USA. The Asian outfit runs an annual Dscoop conference, national workshops, seminars and webinars.

David Minnett, managing director of 36-year-old Sydney business Group Momentum, is the chairman of the steering committee of Dscoop Asia-Pacific and Japan. The group’s membership lists has some 120 Australasian HP users. Among these are hybrid operations such as Sydney-based Clark Murphy and Dpod in New Zealand. Minnett forecasts that 55-60% of HP users in Australian and New Zealand will eventually belong to Dscoop.

He sees Dscoop as a cooperative enterprise to help printers with anything from technical questions about white-ink application to business discussions on margin pressures. In October, Dscoop held two Australian workshops, featuring colour analyst Yves Roussange on workflow automation for RIPs and Iven Frangi, Australasia’s pre-eminent customer experience management specialist.

One of Dscoop’s latest offers is the ‘Marketing to Win Toolkit’, which includes training and software to prepare print professionals in approaching graphic designers and helps them establish a full-content marketing strategy. 

The toolkit includes sales force training from industry icons such as marketing automation coach Peter Winters. Marketing To Win also features ‘The Book of Possibilities’, a design catalogue that shows off print technologies using various substrates and different finishes. Its purpose is to present designers with a showcase of a company’s capabilities using Indigo. Minnett has familiarised himself with the toolkit and plans to implement it at Group Momentum. The toolkit is not yet available for online purchase in Asia-Pacific but can be ordered by email from the Dscoop website.

Minnett’s conclusion is simple: Dscoop is designed to stop digital providers taking the commercial litho route of undercutting each other out of existence under razor-thin margins and growing piles of debt.

Fuji Xerox Australia’s ProfitAccelerator is a set of more than 50 tools and programs to maximise digital equipment investment, marshalling the vendor’s experience, resources and support.

Graphic communications marketing manager Stephen Ball says customers have access to a dedicated business development team, for assessments, business plan development, sales training and more, delivered face-to-face or through webinars (see box). There are tools to create a business plan and calculate return-on-invesment, templates, guides, and samples to help the production of new applications, classes on profitable digital printing, books, manuals and newsletters.

Ball says ProfitAccelerator covers four resource areas: financial, marketing and sales, agency and design, and application and development. “In many cases, these activities will have a positive impact of the company profitability, but the exact numbers are not always easy to be measured.”

One of FXA’s most popular tools, the Digital Readiness Assessment (DRA), enables the vendor to work with customers to ensure the support is relevant. The DRA was created using the Six Sigma lean manufacturing methodology, says Ball. It identifies critical factors that make a digital business successful and applies them to the assessment. Firstly, FXA experts conduct interviews to help them understand the customer’s business. They then produce a customised, confidential report identifying three critical areas the business needs to address. Finally, FXA holds discussions with the client to identify resources needed to boost business. 

One area proving challenging to print businesses is sustainability. In October, FXA hosted a seminar in Melbourne to launch a sustainability guide for the graphics market, as a component of ProfitAccelerator. The $100 guide contains advice ranging from successful case studies on how to print profitably under a carbon tax.

Ball says: “Our customers were highly engaged throughout the entire process. They provided us the insights and the direction for the development of the content, and they shared their stories and best practices with us.”

Canon’s Essential Business Builder Program is a mentoring initiative, helping printers develop a business plan, introduce new services, improve marketing, seek new sales channels, handle internal finance, and manage staff.

Paul Thompson, Canon Australia’s general manager, production printing systems, sees the Applied Technology Centre (ATC) at its Sydney headquarters as an industry leader in mentoring. 

“A number of our customers have benefited from accredited training sessions at the centre to help them get the most out of their Canon devices and software. Our ATC team also offers consultation, pre- and post-sale, on a formal or ad-hoc basis, to ensure the learning journey continues.”

Thompson says the strategy begins before the equipment sale, with the sales team getting under the skin of their customer’s business and its objectives. “Once implemented, we offer a full suite of after-sales support from installation, and training, to advice on how to ensure maximum uptime. Our ATC offers advice and assistance across a range of activities, such as the application of pure print, the challenges of multi-channel marketing campaigns, and getting the most out of their workflow and integration.”

He admits it is not for everyone. “There will always be printers who are happy to purchase hardware and software and go it alone, but we see more are interested in getting greater support from a vendor.” 

Like other vendors ProPrint spoke to, Canon is wary of offering rigid remedies. Thompson’s response: “We offer the level of support that the printer requires.”

Kodak has focused its mentoring on the critical software gateways that now join printers to their customers – web-to-print solutions offering web-based order desks, and automated workflows tracking jobs from order to despatch.

The company has made it possible for its Australian printer clients to access a network of some 500 software writers in Canada, Israel and China who can assist in fine-tuning off-the-shelf software products to the specifics of a print enterprise, says Michael Smedley, business services and solutions group manager.

Discussing Kodak’s MarketMover Business Advantage Solutions this year, Smedley told ProPrint: “To win that big printing account, you may need to change something in the software to do something special. You’ve got to have IT people help your company win those contracts and now we’re saying we’re here to help.”

Ricoh has introduced the Ricoh Business Driver Program, gathering an array of business development services, tools and information for Ricoh customers. Not yet available in Australia, the program is an online source of practical information and tools on production printing, designed for Ricoh production printing customers. 

The vendor lists benefits such as gaining access to effective sales, marketing and business strategies, industry information and training, boosting business, and maximising ROI.

There’s no doubt that plenty of this is useful intelligence, and especially pertinent in a market that is in desperate need of answers to commercial pressures. But with that in mind, asking printers to fork out more money to pay for advice could prove a difficult barrier for vendors. 

Barney Cox, senior consultant at global industry think tank InfoTrends, says printers need to get out of the mind frame that you pay for metal but not for intel. In a guest column for ProPrint earlier this year, he wrote: “You may have heard of ‘business development tools’ – services that vendors will sell to printers to help them boost business in myriad ways. 

“You might reject these on the grounds that “they’re just trying to sell me more stuff”. Yes, they are, but if those tools help you to be more successful, where’s the problem? There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Vendors have valuable sector knowledge and a vested interest in your success in the form of recurring revenues for service and supplies.” 

Case study: Print Bound and Fuji Xerox

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