IPMA 2010: A Hot Time in New Mexico

The 2010 In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) conference was "hot" in more ways than one.

First there was the temperature. Attendees arrived in Albuquerque just in time for a rare spring heat wave, which brought temperatures up to 100 degrees on most days.

Then there was the food. With red and green chili spicing up nearly every dish, attendees enjoyed their share of hot meals, including an evening outing to one of Albuquerque's most popular restaurants, El Pinto.

But hotter than both food and sun were the topics, speakers and enthusiasm at this year's conference, which brought close to 100 in-plant managers to New Mexico's largest city. Among a host of excellent speakers were three of the printing industry's most knowledgeable and compelling experts, Barb Pellow, Bill Farquharson and Howie Fenton, offering managers excellent advice on how to thrive in spite of the sour economy.

Adding to the excitement was a vendor fair, where managers checked out some of the latest technologies for their in-plants. And the whole three-day event wrapped up with an awards banquet, during which two in-plants were honored with Best of Show awards.

IPMA President John Sarantakos, head of University of Oklahoma Printing Services, was one of the key organizers of the conference, and kept things running smoothly. During a business lunch on the third day, he presented an uplifting picture of the association's status.

"IPMA is healthy and growing," he said. It has a positive cash flow, its headquarters were just moved to a larger space, and a membership campaign is underway to increase the current roster of 550+ members.

Hitting the Ground Running

The conference got off to a great start with keynote speaker Bill Farquharson, a digital print sales trainer and founder of Aspire For Inc. There's less print work to go around these days, he noted, and this is scaring commercial printers. Most of them are competing on price alone.

"Relationships are dead," he declared.

To stay in business, in-plants must study their customers' challenges and solve their problems.

"Solve the problem, earn the order," he proclaimed.

You must become technologically superior to your competition, he said. If you master the software the customer uses, they will stick with you. Lock them in by providing design templates, a Web-to-print option and educating them on how to make print-ready files.

Farquharson listed three reasons customers buy from you:

• Your raw sales ability, including customer service and trust.
• Your knowledge of your own products and services.
• Your knowledge of your customers' challenges.

"All three of these are within your ability to change," he noted.

On the other hand, a sure way to lose customers is to let them feel you don't care about them. To avoid this, he advised, make no assumptions, constantly challenge the status quo, anticipate the customer's next move and act as if you are only as good as the last job you delivered. Show appreciation for each and every order.

He encouraged managers to expand within their base; make sure existing customers know about all of your services, he said. The six words you don't want to hear are "I didn't know you did that," he said—and if you do hear them, he added, ask yourself whose fault that is.

Also make sure you know all of their services. Go to their Web site. Are they launching new products or services? Present them with ideas of ways you can help. In-plants should differentiate themselves not by price or service, but by their resourcefulness and creativity. Remember, Farquharson said, your competition sells print; you should sell ideas.

Avoid the 'Red Ocean'

Backing up his advice was the second day's keynote speaker, Barb Pellow, of InfoTrends. She told managers to avoid fighting for business in the "red ocean" of cut-throat competition, but instead move to a calmer "blue ocean" where you provide a truly differentiating value that makes your competition irrelevant. By looking at adjacent markets, you can discover an uncontested market space where you can create and capture new demand.

Managers must look at departments in their organizations that are not sending them business, and ask themselves if they are really serving the base of power in the organization. She recommended that managers look at complementary products they can offer, and visualize beyond print.

"If you don't start thinking about alternative channels and what role you can play...you've got a problem," she said. She discussed everything from the explosion of mobile devices and social media to the growing use of QR codes.

Pellow described an iPhone app that allowed her to create and mail a postcard from her iPhone, and asked managers to consider how they can create new applications by blending mobile tools and print. How will you differentiate your in-plant to add value, not just save money, she asked. You need to be an integral part of where your company is taking its communications, she said.

Your "competition" today may be a facilities management firm, Pellow added, but tomorrow it will be new media.

Print Volumes Will Rise Again

Offering a slightly contrasting view was Howie Fenton, NAPL senior consultant, who said that by 2014 he expects to see print volumes return to their 2007 levels. He said that some in-plants he has talked to have told him there was a declining demand for print in their organizations; yet when he analyzed all printing being bought outside, he saw the demand was actually still high.

Fenton suggested in-plants monitor their break-even point more often than once a year—every month or two would be better—to keep their costs competitive with those of outside printers. In-plants also need a strategy for increasing their sales and cutting costs, he said.

Fenton suggested that in-plants adjust their customer satisfaction surveys and ask customers to rate them in comparison with the competition. After all, customers tend to leave because the competition provides a better service, he said. He also noted that survey questions should provide results that are actionable.

Fenton reminded managers that, if their sales or service is poor, it will not matter what they sell; they will simply lose customers. Since most in-plants don't have sales reps, he said, managers and CSRs should be trained in sales and make sales calls, using consultative sales techniques.

Countless Excellent Sessions

The sessions at this year's IPMA conference covered numerous pertinent topics, from customer surveying, print buying and sustainable paper procurement, to in-plant self promotion, centralized copier programs and pricing strategies. (Copies of presentation slides are available from IPMA.)

Some of the more notable sessions included:

• Jerry Sampson, of xpedx, discussed how he helped Halifax Hospital preserve its in-plant after it had been targeted for closure. By upgrading equipment so the in-plant could print marketing materials, adding online ordering to make the in-plant easier to use, and improving its workflow, the shop was able to save $149,000 a year for the hospital. Only by understanding its costs and calculating the return on investment of new equipment was the shop able to justify this new equipment, Sampson said.

• Greg Cholmondeley of Ricoh noted that it is insufficient for in-plants to highlight only their profitability and volume figures during operational reviews. That approach can lead to no-win situations (i.e., a large profit could make management think you're charging too much; if you break even, they could say you're not contributing). He discussed ways to more effectively present an in-plant's true financial and strategic value and demonstrated how to determine that information using tools recently developed by Ricoh.

• One of the more scary sessions alerted managers to a security threat from their own copiers and MFDs. In-plant managers Rob Lingard, of Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators, and Doug Maxwell, of Brigham Young University, explained how hard drives on digital copiers store all data that has ever been copied. When these devices are returned to the vendor at the end of the lease, they are often resold, and that data can be easily retrieved. The speakers advised managers to ask their vendors how they plan to delete this information, and investigate hard drive overwriting programs.

• Charlotte "Charlie" Holden, director of Administrative Services at Houston Independent School District (HISD), described how she has successfully challenged facilities management (FM) firms at their own game and now runs printing facilities for five outside organizations. Not only is this generating a profit for the district, it has made it nearly impossible for her in-plant to be outsourced, since she has multi-year contracts for the outside business. When bidding against other FMs, she stresses that her goal is to save them money, while the FMs' model is to upsell more expensive services. Also, giving her in-plant the business will support local education by routing money to HISD.

• Trish Bhattacharya, of Xerox, encouraged in-plants to become "strategically relevant" to their parent organizations, as well as "operationally relevant." This means understanding your goal, measuring your current state (including bottlenecks), analyzing your data to look for trends and fluctuations, developing a plan with the help of your team, and then implementing and tracking results.

During the conference, attendees learned that next year's event will move to the other side of the country. It will take place June 5-9, in Charleston, S.C.