IPEX Highlights
28
PRINT.IT
01732 759725
Personalisation
Hybrid mail
Exhibiting at the Cross Media
Production Conference
running alongside IPEX,
locr
offers personalised
maps that can be integrated
into all forms of marketing
communications, including
print, email, mobile, video
and pURLS. According to locr,
including personalised maps
within a marketing campaign
helps create an emotional
connection with an audience,
leading to better response
rates. Maps can contain
individual points of interest,
logos or routing information.
Riso will be unveiling The
Bridge, an integrated print
and mail solution that links
the latest Riso ComColor
inkjet printers with BÖWE
SYSTEC’s Vario inserting
system. Ideal for hybrid
mail applications and the
processing of sensitive
documents, such as
confidential billings and
medical or legal documents,
The Bridge automatically
transports printed output
from the printer to the
inserting system. Because
no manual intervention is
required, the confidentiality
of documents is assured.
There is even the option of an
opaque cover that prevents
an operator from reading
documents as they are
transported. The Bridge can
produce up to 8,200 finished
items an hour. Riso is also
introducing a variety of new
accessories for ComColor
inkjet printers, ranging from
embedded print management
software for multi-vendor
printer fleets to a Wrapping
Envelope Finisher and a
Perfect Binder that allows
users to produce perfect-
bound books on demand.
...continued
for them change is a big thing.
Other people who are new to
the management of in-house
print centres see change as
an opportunity. So it is very
dependent on CRD managers
– and their managers as well
– as to how innovative and
entrepreneurial they want to be.”
Business opportunities
Blanchard says that there are
a number of trends that print
centres can exploit to generate
additional business.
“In local government there
is a desire to drive volume from
office machines to centralised
print. I know of three or four local
government organisations that
are actively looking at that from
a productivity and cost point
of view. One local government
body historically printed revenue
and benefits statements on
MFPs because people could
print them locally to their desk
in a controlled process. But this
was not good from a cost and
efficiency point of view, so they
have now migrated 30-40% of
statements to a centralised print
room that they already had.
This has saved them several
thousands of pounds a year.
“Coupled with this, there has
been a drive to hybrid mail in
organisations that send out a lot
of mail to customers. Instead of
individual departments printing
mail, stuffing it in an envelope
and posting it, organisations
are asking ‘how can we drive
mail volume down to the CRD
where it can be printed at lower
cost, inserted into envelopes
and aggregated with the postal
volume of the entire organisation
to maximise Royal Mail postal
discounts?’. Significant savings
can be made this way.”
Third party management
For some, outsourcing print
centre management to a third
party might be the best option.
This is not a growing area, but it
has its place and is one of the
services offered by Canon.
“Often a print centre will be
managed by someone other
than the host organisation,”
explains Blanchard. “Physically,
it’ll still exist in the organisation
and be staffed by people who
worked for the organisation,
even if they have now been TUPE
migrated to an FM company. We
do that through Canon Business
Services. We will provide on-site
or off-site print facilities to an
organisation. We will either run it
on the customer site or in some
cases we will take the customer’s
volume and print it at a central
print centre. It all depends on the
customer requirements.
“We have a tool that we offer
customers called a Business
and Innovation Scan: it’s a fairly
detailed assessment looking at
the organisation and its print
centre capabilities. We align that
with trends in the marketplace,
in terms of print-on-demand,
variable data, web-to-print, cross
media, and look at how the print
centre is set up to address these
applications and challenges. We
will then produce a report on how
to go forward. Recommendations
may be technology-based or they
may be business-oriented.
We have the Essential
Business Builder programme
where we use third party experts
to work with customers and
advise them how to develop
their print operation. It may
involve a business plan and a
marketing plan explaining how
to promote services internally,
what new services to offer, how
to implement those services and
how to make customers aware of
them and their benefits.”
As the quality and productivity
of digital print technology
continues to improve and
communication channels continue
to diversify, CRDs and print
centres must continue to evolve.
Now that digital technology offers
print quality close to offset, with
the flexibility to produce short-runs
quickly and at low cost, there
is scope for entrepreneurial
managers to bring more work
in-house and develop additional
services to compensate for the
decline in traditional areas of print
production.
