Strategic Partnering with Print Distributors

by C. Clint Bolte,

Nearly 80 manufacturer and supplier members of Document Management Industries Association converged in Madison Wisconsin July 22-24 for their annual Executive Conference. There was no coincidence that their meeting room overlooked the beautifully contemporary Madison Community and Convention Hall designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This was symbolic of the underlying theme of the conference; "Maintain historical vital relationships while developing new contemporary skills in partnering to take advantage of more complex business opportunities."

The attendees heard successful case studies and presentations on the new digital technologies, which require a technical as well as sales partnership in addressing the growing complexity of requirements. This suggested strategic repositioning for manufacturers is providing the technical expertise to complement the distributors' sales acumen in solving clients' more complex graphic communication problems.

            The first morning was spent touring the 210,000 square foot Suttle-Straus manufacturing facility in nearby Waunakee, Wisconsin. Over $16 million has been invested in just the last three years to keep this award winning full service graphics communications solution provider current. The 255 employees over four shifts had throughput of $37 million in sales in 2006 of sheetfed & half web lithography, digital printing including wide format, fulfillment and mailing services.

            Color management theory is being incorporated throughout these varied print vehicles. This assures that digital print, sheetfed and web printing all match one another for those projects that cross over. For example, advance copies are often digitally printed with the full run out being produced lithographically.

            To plan and coordinate the more complex projects involving many of these complementary services has resulted in Suttle-Straus setting up innovative customer service "teams." These are comprised of knowledgeable experts from database IT, fulfillment, mail and printing. To develop this broad expertise the company has a full time training coordinator. A library is maintained in the employee cafeteria so that everyone has access to materials that can be taken home to be studied. The company offers formal educational reimbursement and a corporate-sponsored bus that will take any interested employee down to Graph Expo in Chicago every year. Maintaining a skilled, self-motivated work force is a continuous challenge according to Berthelsen "in a community (Madison) with 1.8% unemployment."

President John Berthelsen remarked, "Our future emphasis will no longer be big iron as digital and web-enabled services are our fastest growing product segments." Examples of some of their web-enabled solutions are stationary store, event management system, brochure vault, online materials ordering system, dealer customized catalog system, and virtual proofing.

Over 10% of their 255 full time employees are responsible for IT and data management tasks. In order to keep this proportion from escalating the firm chooses best in class software application vendors and works closely with their application software developers to fine tune new programs. For example, they signed contracts at last year's Graph Expo with Streamline Solutions to install their PrintStream software. This is one of the few fully integrated software solutions available for print-fulfillment-mail operations infrastructure. While PrintStream has hundreds of clients, none were as large and sophisticated as Suttle-Straus. During the last eight months Streamline Solutions software programmers have been fine-tuning applications to meet Suttle-Straus demanding criteria.

The end result, which went live July 1, is a unique labyrinth of IT capabilities. Streamline Solutions will certainly have a new client and exciting expanded features to talk about at Graph Expo 2007 and Suttle-Straus will no doubt be hosting more visits from full service printers as prospective buyers to see this software capability in operation.

            In his presentation on "Evolving Your Product Line" Appleton Papers Business Development Manager Roger Buck offered three sources for specialty roll or fan fold finishing to complete an integrated card, magnet or label: Brandt Affixing at 800-878-1919 or brandtaffixing.com, AddValue2Print at 847-551-1570 or addvalue2print.com, and USA/Docufinish at 800-843-8154 or usadocufinish.com. In discussing successful case studies he remarked that security papers for printing wine labels is most appropriate for the $8-14 bottle price bracket as this is the most popular fraud market for schlepping cheap wine. In another successful case Buck suggested that offering mobile shredding services might be extremely attractive to corporations who don't even want security scrap "out of their sight." A shredder is located in the back of a large van that comes to the corporate client's office upon request and shreds in their presence.

            InfoTrends Group Director Jim Hamilton gave a thorough comparison of the production level digital color devices. The 2006 market share held by manufacturers of devices of at least 24 pages per minute were led by Canon (19.6%), Konica Minolta (18.4%), Xerox (16.7%), and Ricoh (16.0%). This entire market represented 43,183 units. The 2006 market share for 1 million+ monthly duty cycle printers shows HP Indigo with  41.9%, Xerox iGen3 at 32.9%, and (3) Kodak NexPress holding 17.0%. There were 700 units in this high-end market niche.

Hamilton showed speed and investment cost charts for the sixteen leading high-speed production color digital presses and the direct-to-press devices. Go to the DMIA website to download those charts from Mr. Hamilton's presentation. He suggested that inkjet technologies pose a long-term threat to the current dominance of toner technologies because inkjet (1) is faster, (2) has lower consumable cost, and (3) can print lower coverage color more cost effectively. Several pundits agree with this supposition and in fact have pre-named next spring's Düsseldorf show, the "Inkjet DRUPA." This is in expectation for the overwhelming new inkjet product announcements to be made.

Beginning with Suttle-Straus emphasis upon training and retaining good people and the numerous presentations on new and evolving product offerings requiring distinct technical skills, it was appropriate to conclude the conference with a presentation by the highly regarded Human Resource Consultant, Debra Thompson, Principal of TG & Associates. She reviewed the 13 steps in hiring grade AA talent from her recently released book entitled, No More Rotten Eggs, which DMIA distributed to attendees.

Begin defining the job with a thorough job description. Next define the person by using Human Job Analysis (HJA) that translates the behavior expectations for the job's position, business strategy and team fit. Testing of candidates will quantify the baseline characteristics for behavior using the Thomas Personality DISC Model; Dominance or "power," Influence or "people," Compliance or "policy," and Steadiness or "pace." These also measure the tendencies and strengths to tell, sell, write and listen.

Thompson detailed the steps for recruiting, prescreening, employment application, and structured interview(s). Under the testing step for favorable candidates she showed numerous classic DISC profiles for proven effective Customer Service Representatives and Outside Print Sales Professionals, for example. This DISC tool would be helpful in both the hiring process as well as the career planning process for existing desirable employees. She offered the caveat that comparing the results to HJA and obtaining a full written profile report from a professional is recommended for complete and thorough interpretation.

The Reference Check step is tedious and "should never be skipped." Substance abuse checking is essential. Thompson said, "Small businesses have become the 'employer of choice' for substance abusers because there is so little testing."

Retention issues and concerns are paramount. Leadership IQ surveyed 16,237 employees and found that 47% of the high performers are actively looking for a new job because (1) of how they are being treated, (2) they want tougher projects, and (3) they are experiencing too much stress and burn out from continued long working hours. This same survey found that only 18% of low performers are actively looking. "Why would they?" concluded Thompson when "the company does not depend on them and in fact dreads dealing with them." Retaining these top performers requires mentoring by key employees who care, feedback that is more than an annual review, flexibility, and keeping them engaged.

Get the "right people in the right seats" on your bus, admonished Thompson. "And don't ever lower the bar!"

Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768 or e-mail to .