Moving your business towards the print world of the future

Peter Williams - Ricoh Europe Executive Vice President, Production Printing Business Group

Making the right business decision has arguably never been tougher for print service providers. Technical innovation continues to race forward and client demands diversify; options for new investment abound, but the volatility of the economy complicates the decision making process. It can be hard to identify the best way to meet the challenges of the future.

In a recent customer survey carried out through Ricoh’s Business Driver business development programme[1], members rated the importance of business transformation and finding new markets and print applications as two of the most important areas currently facing their business.

What’s interesting is the scale of transformation that print service providers have taken. For some, they have already fully integrated their digital production into their offset capability, have dedicated web-to-print accounts for their clients and are active in multi-media campaigns. The most entrepreneurial are taking the lead in fully integrated marketing campaigns, a role traditionally considered the domain of the creative digital marketing agency. They have become marketing service providers.

On the other end of the scale, many businesses are at the beginning of their transformation and are considering what first steps to take to ensure the future growth of their business. Daily we are being asked questions such as; how do I make the transition to become a marketing service provider? What tools provide the quickest return on investment? What print volumes can I expect in the future?

At Ricoh, we believe that whether businesses are small local providers or larger national operations, there is an opportunity for all print service providers to carve their own path to the print world of the future.

Making the transition to a marketing service provider

From print service provider to marketing service provider is a discussion that’s been debated for some time. It inevitably means that print service providers should expand their offering from print to include multi-channel marketing communications, and for some, it seems as daunting a prospect today, as it was five years ago.

The good news for those starting on the journey to becoming a marketing service provider is that there is more information, advice and technology available than ever before. To successfully make the transition look for a long term partner that understands marketplace shifts and will continually help with the business transformation through consulting and professional services. A standard technology maintenance service and support contract alone won’t help to build a business and new business pipelines. We are continually reviewing the professional services we offer to ensure they change as our customers grow. As well as personal support from our people, our Ricoh Business Driver Programme features authoritative advice and ideas to generate new opportunities, and practical tools to boost business.

Rapid return on investment

A digital press remains an important investment. Business risk can be mitigated by investing in a ‘lighter production’ model that provides offset like quality, extensive media compatibility and will fully integrate with any existing offset workflows.   Ricoh’s Pro C751 series was designed with the first time digital user, as well as the experienced digital provider, in mind. Its affordability means a quicker return on investment if volumes are modest at the beginning, while its productivity means that it will still keep up the pace as the business grows. And its unparalleled flexibility gives it the versatility to deal effortlessly with the ever-broadening challenges of the print on demand environment.

Web to print should also be at the heart of how printers and their clients communicate. Web to print helps to build a captive customer base. Clients can save time by ordering print jobs online, but beyond that, web to print provides a two-way communication portal to build lasting relationships and understand client ordering patterns. Again there are ‘light’ solutions for those embarking on the transformation. For example, we are offering a hosted web to print solution called NowPrint, so that our customers can take advantage of the cloud based ‘software as a solution’ model (SaaS). They do not need to make the big IT investments that have caused hesitation in the past.

Volumes into the future

Technology is changing the way we do business and online integration is undoubtedly the future of printed media. Focusing on print in isolation will be a high-risk strategy. Print service providers need to transform their business to offer services that are complementary to print.

The businesses that will thrive in the future will be those that can integrate their workflows, meet the demand for shorter, low cost print runs, provide personalised multi-channel communications and innovative print applications.

But selling digital print and added-value services requires a completely different approach. To sell these services effectively requires an understanding of the client’s business, and usually involves pilot runs and print trials for proof-of-concept and return on investment.

To flourish in this fast-paced environment, print service providers must act now, and seek an uncompromising performance package that has been designed with todays more testing on demand market in mind.

So we encourage print service providers to continue to ask us how we can help them, but they should also ask of themselves – what am I waiting for?
www.ricoh-europe.com

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[1] Ricoh Business Driver Programme online member survey, March 2011

For further information, please contact:
Ricoh Europe PLC
Janice Gibson
Tel.: +44 (0)20 7465 1153
E-mail: press@ricoh-europe.com
Home page: www.ricoh-europe.com
Register for the Ricoh media centre at: www.ricoh-europe.com/press

About Ricoh

Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Ricoh Company) is a Fortune Global 500 company specialising in technology and services that transform high volume, document intensive business processes into more efficient ones. This is achieved through Ricoh’s expertise in Managed Document Services, Production Printing, Office Solutions and IT Services.

By working with Ricoh, businesses can streamline the way they work, become more efficient and profitable, and share knowledge more effectively within their organisations. With a global workforce of 109,014, Ricoh operates in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, China and Japan.

Ricoh Europe Holdings PLC is a public limited company and the EMEA headquarters of Ricoh Company with operations located in London, United Kingdom and Amstelveen, the Netherlands. In the fiscal year ended 31 March 2011, revenues from Ricoh's EMEA operations totalled ¥413.9 billion (approx US$4.99 billion). Ricoh Company's worldwide sales totalled ¥1,942 billion (approx US$23.4 billion) during the year ended 31 March 2011.