Where do E-services “Fit” in Printing?

Do you guide your print vendors in their new equipment investments?

We had a vendor who was strictly an envelope printer, and we said to him, “It doesn’t help us to be sending envelopes to you and business cards somewhere else and letterheads somewhere else again. We need one source.”

So he bit the bullet, developed a business card and letterhead capability after about 20 years of being an envelope company, and he’s tripled his business.

We’re asking our partners to do nothing more than we do, which is to listen to the customer and listen to the market. The biggest mistake people make is to think they are smarter than their client. Digital presses, when they first came out, were an excellent example. After doing two or three test runs digitally and having postcards come back smudged beyond recognition, people were saying, this isn’t what I need.

You can’t have arrogance about the market. You have to move from the market backwards. That may not sound like anticipating needs and looking to the future, but the client leads you where you have to go.