Global Document Solutions — On the Fast Track
THE BEAUTY of the commercial printing industry, particularly in the past five to 10 years, is its ability to adapt and evolve in the face of changing technologies. Clearly, the digital printing revolution and the move toward providing ancillary services to complete a turnkey solution is the most recent example of this evolution. But it is not the first threat to this mature industry, nor will it be the last.
A case in point is Global Document Solutions (GDS) of New York City, a once traditional print and mail company founded in 1906 that, as recently as the 1980s, found itself in the crowded field of offering offset, letterpress, typesetting and old-fashioned direct mail (insert into envelope and mail). At its centennial celebration, GDS bears little resemblance to its founding father’s vision (the company was originally called American Direct Mail), but its current day CEO has fulfilled the ultimate goal of any business-to-business enterprise—evolving to satisfy the needs of its customers.
In that regard, some things never change.
“We try to communicate proactively with our customers to understand their goals and objectives and, through that, come back to them with solutions that allow them to get a higher return on their investment,” states Mark Goodstadt, chairman and CEO of GDS.
Interestingly, these core values could have been found in the company’s original mission statement from 1906 as easily as 2006. It goes without saying that the stakes have been raised 100 fold, and GDS didn’t get to blow out so many candles by standing pat.
GDS holds claim to being one of the early adopters of Xerox’s iGen3 digital press technology, with nearly four years of full-color digital imaging under its belt. The company, which generates more than $50 million in annual revenues on the strength of its 300-member employee base, also boasts IBM continuous form imaging capabilities and recently expanded into high speed color imaging with the acquisition of a high-speed Océ VarioPrint 9000 system.
GDS’ integrated business communications and document processing services space has grown exponentially with the expansion into a 130,000-square-foot plant in Carlstadt, NJ. The new digs, which opened in January, houses its creative, printing and mailing operations, along with a high-speed data center that links it to GDS’ Manhattan headquarters and the Metrotech facility in Brooklyn, as well as its other processing site in San Francisco. The headquarters, too, is being relocated on Hudson Street.
Hefty Capacity Boost
According to Goodstadt, the new facility in New Jersey will help bolster capacity by a hefty 50 percent. “The addition of Carlstadt allows us to provide seamless, consistent service from every GDS location and will help our customers get their mission-critical documents to market even faster,” he says.
The gloss hasn’t left the San Francisco plant, either. Born in 2005, the Golden Gate expedition was a product of Goodstadt’s decision to take his transaction processing business and invest in equipment to further expand into the world of variable data imaging. Goodstadt aligned himself with a private equity investment group, FTVentures, bought out his partner into retirement and mapped out his expansion plan. The acquisition of Best Strategy of Hayward, CA, buoyed GDS’ output capabilities by upwards of 40 percent.
“My goal as CEO is to drive as much value into one-to-one communications as possible to create the greatest ROI for our clients, thus building a stronger partnership between our organizations,” Goodstadt notes. “We’ve used one-to-one marketing for years but, at the end of the day, what does that mean? It means you’re driving the eyes of the end user—the touch and feel of that communication piece, to turn an intangible into a tangible product.”
The company specializes in statement processing, particularly for financial documents like bank and brokerage statements, but also counts vertical markets such as government, insurance, technology and telecoms among its client base.
GDS offers sheetfed offset printing, but is growing by leaps and bounds with the foray into fulfillment and distribution through Pitney Bowes intelligent inserting technology. The company has deepened its programming and development team for all forms of data processing, programming and development services.
Web-to-print has been another exciting growth area over the past four years for GDS. Its empowerDocs solution allows clients to utilize their Web browsers to create documents and templates for product procurement. The advertising vertical came on board early with Web-to-print, but GDS has also fostered strong relationships with the technology sector.
While most of the capex at Goodstadt’s disposal is geared toward digital printing, GDS is not a stranger to old school printing. Using the Océ 9000, GDS produces a number of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the London Guardian, for East Coast distribution. At press time, GDS also procured a contract to produce another newspaper title.
“The Océ 9000 series is a universal machine that allows you to print high-speed transactional documents, in color, as well as something as simple as a newspaper,” Goodstadt notes.
GDS is leveraging document process outsourcing (DPO) to allow for continuous improvement in the life cycle of clients’ documents. “We’re very familiar with creating, imaging and distributing, and now we’re working on gaining feedback,” he adds. “Now, when we do another cycle with that document, we can improve the process either through the message or the delivery of the information.”
Digital Future, Indeed
Digital is indeed the future for GDS, and it is a future that also includes continued expansion of the company footprint. Goodstadt envisions gaining a presence in the Midwest, as well as further augmenting its services in the Northeast with another facility. But he also emphasizes that New York remains a viable and cornerstone hub of the organization and remains the heart of the company.
With so many changes occurring in just the past few years, Goodstadt is looking forward to further transformation and growing GDS’ national profile.
“We have a very strong management team in place that is fully in step with the goals and objectives of the CEO and board of directors,” he says. “I’ve been here close to 25 years, and the past two years have been the most exciting of my career. I’m excited about the future.” PI