Thinking Beyond the Printed Page is about the infrastructure that supports a successful digital printing strategy.
Whether you print books, direct mail or the many varieties of work that come under the general commercial print banner, the world around you, the external factors that affect how you and your clients do business have changed during the last 10 years.
This won’t be a revelation to you. You have felt it happening. You have probably tried to adapt, to think through how you can safeguard the future of your print business, to invest or divest for greater profitability. You may have tried diversification, simplification, or both – but procrastination, it has become abundantly clear, is not an option.
So how can this document help you? The clue is in the title: Thinking Beyond the Printed Page. This is a report that looks to the future of Production Print and makes what Ricoh believes are a number of very pertinent points. They concern the need for business transformation to drive growth and gain efficiency, the role of new technology – and not just a new printing press – in bringing about this transformation, the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for those prepared to make bold choices.
Underlying everything is a single, simple truth: you are in business to make money. The marketplace where this has to happen, however, has changed fundamentally. The internet has obviously brought revolution to the connection between yourself as a print business, your customers and their customers. You need to be more efficient in a far more profound way than simply being able to print 10 more pages per minute than was possible last year.
Customers are grappling with Big Data; they are tussling with the conflicting priorities that the 21st Century consumer demands from them: a personalised message generated from within a supply chain that is still transitioning from its mass production mastery of years gone by. A brief glance at statistics shows how far there is still to go in this transition. According to Smithers Pira, in 2015 digital print accounted for just 2.5% of the market in volume. This small proportion represented 13.9% of the value of the market, however, confirming that the transition must continue, and it will.
Multi-channel marketing, Augmented Reality, Clickable Paper – print is being integrated with electronic delivery in many different ways. Such campaigns call for intuitive use of CRM systems, sophistication in data insight and behavioural analysis, surefootedness in response and delivery. It has to be seamless and it has to be right.
The book market also is transforming in front of us, as e-books, personalised books, self-publishing, books-on-demand, new approaches to logistics and fulfilment, and integration between printers’ and publishers’ systems become entrenched.
In the midst of all of these market movements (some subtle, some stormy), the printer’s traditional expertise at putting ink on paper remains valuable yet really only a singular part of what its business must mean in the 21st Century. Technology is going to transform the production printing sector.
There are processes both up and downstream that today’s book, direct mail and commercial printers can make better or make their own; systems and services delivering efficiency and growth, that will transform their own businesses and perhaps those of their customers too. It is time to think beyond the standard confines of the next press investment; think big, think infrastructure, and lay the foundations for dramatic leaps in productivity and profitability; it is time to think beyond the printed page.
