Cup-a-Joe

I recently read a short article titled “What We Have to Do” by NAPL’s Andy Paparozzi.  As far as I’m concerned, Andy hit a home run with this short article.  Why?  Because he dealt with the elephant in the room – the printing business is never going to be the same. 

He could have spent hundreds of words talking about shrinking markets or the need to add ancillary services or digital printing.  Rather, he focused on what company mangers/owners must do to succeed. Here in a nutshell are the key takeaways –

We need to get better at what we’re doing.  Are we still relevant to our clients?  Will we be relevant to our clients in six months?  Eighteen months?  We can no longer afford to focus internally on “managing” the print shop.  We need to become much more marketing oriented.

We have to commit ourselves to being a low-cost producer.

We are going to grow on the backs of our competitors.  There’s not enough print to allow everyone to grow (there’s no rising tide to lift the boats); thus, we need to determine strategies which will allow us to increase market share.  Paparozzi said, “Remember, market share is being redistributed from companies that print to companies that put print to work for their clients.”  ‘Nuff said.

So, as a business owner/manager whose numbers should you believe? read more »