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A common theme underscores the major trends happening in customer communications. It’s output production workflow. Whether this is because of the steadily decreasing cost of hardware and software technology, the increasing regulatory requirements for privacy and audit or the increasing rate of mergers and acquisition in the print production space – it matters little. Output production workflow and process automation is on everyone’s mind. Workflow is often referred to as “command and control” and it is, obviously, very important but – command and control of what? It’s the work behind the workflow that really gets the job done! The first step in any process automation initiative is to Standardize and Normalize operations. Normalizing and Standardization – Organizations can choose many paths to produce printed and digital output. Diverse processes impede smooth transitions when companies attempt to create efficiencies made possible by new technologies. Manually inspecting each set of …

Imagine driving down the road and someone in the back seat says, “Wow, there sure are a lot of red cars on this highway.” For the rest of the day, you’d probably pay special attention to every red car you see, as if they didn’t exist before it was mentioned. The same can be said, nay, needs to be said about verticals. Information comes at us all day long. News in the form of papers like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, TVs set to CNN or CNBC, and the endless crawl at the bottom of the channel you are watching throws information your way like cars on a highway. Red cars. Your job is to notice the red cars. A college president is interviewed on TV. She is extolling the virtues of higher education and grousing about the fact that fewer high school seniors are going to college. Red car. An ad in the local paper announcing an upcoming art fair sponsored by your bank catches your eye as you flip through the pages. Red car. You hear a rumor that a nearby hospital is opening a new …

To fully take advantage of the benefits of inkjet, it’s important to have a workflow that can operate across multiple types of incoming work, automating tasks along the way, and work agnostically in a mixed printing environment with equipment from multiple vendors or multiple printing technology (inkjet production, toner, offset, large format). One of the problems that hinders the ability to take advantage of the greater speeds and format sizes of inkjet presses is the reluctance of users to replace their proprietary workflows.  When digital printing technology first came to market, the software that created the workflow was specific or proprietary. It was proprietary for the printing device and may have used a specific printing language (datastream) and been proprietary for a specific print application (transactional).  A custom or specific workflow is uniquely targeted to specific composition applications, specific equipment, and specific products. A proprietary transactional …

We have an amazing thINK Ahead 2019 conference in store for you. With more than 75 presenters — 50 inkjet press customers and 25 industry analysts and experts — you can be assured learning and networking will be at an all-time high.  thINK Ahead 2019 takes place at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, Sept. 16-18, 2019. If you haven’t yet registered, it’s time! Check your inbox for your invitation — if you don’t see it, visit thinkforum.com/attend to request one. Have you been to a thINK conference before, or are you a first-timer? Either way, you are in store for learning and networking as the thINK board strives to make the conference fresh and exciting each year for all of those that attend. We want you to be inspired.   Here are just a few things to look forward to: Speakers: Ever notice other inkjet conferences have an equipment manufacturer talking in all of the sessions? Not thINK! While thINK has industry experts and Canon executives to round out your learning, the majority of our …

In this series on effective marketing for printing companies, we’ve covered many topics, including developing a company vision, finding likely customers, using effective content marketing, and leveraging marketing technology.  Now, let’s turn to the element that pulls all these and more into a successful whole: the people who make up your marketing operations (MO) team. Who are the folks who can manage or implement the key marketing elements to sustain and grow your business? While major corporations have immense marketing operations org charts, much of it could be boiled down to three essentials: 1) those people who create and test ideas and tactics; 2) those who can analyze key customer data to better inform marketing and customer acquisition efforts; and 3) those who handle the essential digital technology you need for effective demand generation.  Here’s how your MO org chart might be organized.   Compelling Ideas and Effective Tactics Marketing operations might be said to combine …