From the Editor Who's Watching the Vendor?

Unless you live in northern California, you probably missed this news. The manager of a private copy center serving Stanford University was recently arrested for overbilling university departments about $1.5 million over a three-year period. Though the money went to his parent company, he netted tens of thousands in bonuses for the spurious business.

As in-plant manager, you might be tempted to shout, "A-ha! If Stanford had an in-plant that wouldn't have happened." And to some extent that's a reasonable claim, since it's a rare in-plant manager who receives a cash bonus for bringing in print business. Even if a dishonest manager inflated page counts, getting actual money for the made-up business would be difficult, given the checks and balances most organizations have in place.

The real lesson to be drawn from this story, though, is this: If an organization outsources its printing, that doesn't mean it's out of the printing business. It needs to keep its own employees in charge of overseeing the external print vendor—preferably employees who understand printing. It took Stanford three years to realize it was being fleeced. How many of you would take that long to spot such overbilling from one of your vendors?

Organizations that outsource printing often kid themselves that they're saving big money by eliminating the in-plant. Yet they're trusting an outside vendor to keep costs down. That vendor just wants to make a buck. The in-plant, which shares the parent organization's goals, wants to keep costs down. I'm not suggesting vendors are all dishonest, but they will certainly look for every opportunity to make money. This includes charging extra for rush jobs, font problems and many other aberrations that the in-plant handles without a fuss.

Smart organizations trust their in-plant managers to decide which jobs can be printed more cost-effectively on the outside and which ones are better suited to the in-plant. By supporting their in-plants, those organizations have saved money and improved their own efficiency.

Speaking of in-plant supporters, I'd like to acknowledge someone who has acted as an in-plant advocate for many years. As publisher of IPG since 1997, Gary Rubin has been a well-known face to many of you who attend industry conferences. Gary recently retired from IPG. I wanted to personally thank him for his years of service to the magazine and to the in-plant industry. He asked me to relay his best wishes to the many managers he got to know over the years. Those who have met him will surely miss him.

Also, I hope you'll join me in giving a warm welcome to IPG's new publisher, Glen Reynolds, who has served as associate publisher of the magazine for many years now. We both look forward to seeing you at some of the industry events coming up in 2005.