NSPA Conference Exploring New Markets

Government in-plants from around the country gathered in Des Moines to learn from each other and develop their digital strategies.

By Bob Neubauer

Perhaps the highlight of the recent National State Publishing Association (NSPA) conference—the part that may have hit home hardest for the 27 government attendees—was when fellow NSPA member Raúl Guevara took the floor with an energetic presentation detailing how his department's strategic business plan saved $839,133 for the Kansas Department of Transportation.

By analyzing his operation's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and calculating its savings, Guevara, bureau chief of KDOT's Bureau of Support Services, strengthened and improved his department.

"We are the best cost provider to our agency," he said, confidently. "If you don't know your costs, you will not be in business very long."

Guevara's spirited talk spiced up day three of the three-day event, which combined the sharing of information between government in-plants with technology updates from outside experts.

NSPA's 27th conference took place in Des Moines, Iowa, and was organized by NSPA President Lise Melton, public service executive officer for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, along with Joe Tucker, administrator of the Ohio Office of State Printing's Department of Administrative Services.

The conference got off to a powerful start when U.S. Public Printer Bruce James took the stage and described his goals of retooling GPO into an electronic information distribution organization. He noted some of the difficulties GPO is encountering in this quest, such as authenticating documents, storing them in digital format, and versioning.

"What constitutes a version in the electronic world?" he asked.

James put forth the idea of partnering with state governments to create a government information portal on the Internet. This would enable citizens to go to a single place for all government information.

"We want to be your partners," he said to the state government printers in attendance.

James also acknowledged that GPO has had problems dealing with customers, and this drove some agencies to find ways to get around GPO when buying printing. Unfortunately, those documents weren't getting into federal depository libraries.

To remedy this, one agency, the Labor Department, has been selected to take part in a one-year demonstration project. It will be allowed to select printers based on "best value," but the printer won't get paid until it sends an electronic version of the document to GPO for the depository library.

Outsourcing Not The Answer

Several conference sessions addressed in-plant issues. Jerry Sampson of Prime Digital Printing, and also one of the presenters of the xpedx-sponsored "Building the Perfect In-plant" workshops, noted that many executives erroneously feel outsourcing will reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and enhance productivity. It is up to in-plants, he said, to prove this is not true and to differentiate themselves from their competition.

For example, he said, creating an Internet "e-store" will open new sales opportunities. Kinko's is already doing this. To compete, in-plants have to offer the same services as outside printers—and more.

The travelling "Building the Perfect In-plant" workshops were what motivated KDOT's Raúl Guevara to formulate the strategic business plan he spoke about in his session. He said it took 22 months and it was tough at first to get his staff to chase numbers, but in the end he was able to prove that the Bureau of Support Services offered a 52.8 percent cost savings over outside services.

Guevara calculated the total cost of operation, then identified the cost to outsource his department's work. In the process he learned what his competition was charging and saw that his operation was giving away many services that outside companies charged for.

Guevara noted that customer service is a great way to distinguish yourself, and he advocated benchmarking with peers, including NSPA members, to determine whether you are offering the right mix of services.

"We have expertise in the National State Publishing Association, and you have to network and take advantage of the expertise," he advised the group. Even when creating his business plan, he explained, he took a look at the plan of another NSPA member and incorporated part of it.

New Revenue

Incoming NSPA President Joe Tucker moderated a couple of roundtable discussions on issues like marketing and generating new revenue. Members saw opportunities in CD burning, scanning and copier management. When Tucker hears of an agency that wants to buy a new copier, he convinces the agency to let his in-plant handle its printing for a year; if customer service is not good enough, he agrees to then approve the copier purchase.

In a session on marketing ideas, Nancy Pedersen of Essman/Associates advised managers to list their in-plants' differentiating factors, then translate these features into benefits. Summarize your main strengths, she said, into a 25-second sales pitch.

To spread the word about your services, Pedersen recommended newsletters, seminars, face-to-face meetings, open houses, videos and even media kits. But she told attendees not to forget to use employees to help promote the in-plant via word of mouth.

Frequent communication with customers is important, she said, so create interest by promoting new equipment or processes, expansions, financial results, new hires, seminars, awards, community service, statistics and other in-plant news.

Technical Perspectives

Many industry suppliers were on hand at the conference, and they offered their technical expertise in some of the sessions:

• Heidelberg's Ron Sarne urged attendees to look into new printing opportunities like print on demand, personalizing, data center printing and wide-format printing. Other opportunities lie outside of printing, he added, like design, mailing, fulfillment, CD duplication, data archiving, and Web development. Sarne also advised attendees to become communications consultants with customers, and to focus on the quality of services, not just the quality of printing.

• Don Johnson of Xerox pointed out that digital color printing is growing quickly. "If you don't have a color strategy in your state, you need to figure out how to get one," he said. In another session, Terry Curtain discussed various applications of the iGen3.

• A.B.Dick's Ken Newton gave status reports on nearly every step in the graphic arts process, from workflow and CTP to offset, toner and electronic paper.

• Bill Shiflet of Avanti talked about the importance of having a graphic arts management system to collect, manage and process shop data, give accurate estimates and provide real-time job status reports. Such systems help with scheduling, he said, track jobs and integrate with your internal accounting system.

• Mike Kubesheski discussed how Business Cards Tomorrow can take away the burden of creating and maintaining an online business card and stationery ordering system by creating a site that looks just like the in-plant's home page. Users key in their data and see an online proof.

• Similarly, Shelly Rose of T/R Systems talked about her company's Digital Storefront for online job submission, proofing, quoting, estimating and billing. Files are automatically converted into PDFs before being sent to the printer over the Internet.