What Can Orange Teach Your Business About Print Management?
The multinational mobile phone company Orange is one of the biggest cell providers in the UK and Europe. This is not least because of the large scale advertising and marketing campaigns it runs, just like any major brand. A large proportion of this advertising involves a huge proportion of physical printing of some kind. Included in this are leaflet printing, instruction manuals, advertising billboards, magazine inserts and direct mail materials. You can imagine that they would spend a huge amount of money on producing this type of material, with colossal budgets to boot.
But a recent news story in the print indusrty press revealed that Orange also spends £7 million every year in the UK on ‘print management‘. Remember this is not spent on the actual printing costs, but on the overall planning and management of all that printing. In these times of recession this amount of money may seem excessive, even for such a big company. Yet that thought wouldn’t last long if you understood what print management is capable of. The simple fact of the matter is this. Businesses who invest in a robust print management solution actually make cost savings as opposed to trying to deal with all their printing inhouse.
A large part of these savings comes down to reducing wastage. Every year, millions of dollars are lost forever in the ‘collateral damage’ caused by color calibration mistakes, messed up print jobs, typographical errors and the like. If you consider unwieldy and complex print marketing strategies this is quite often the case and these costs are written off as ‘inevitable’. It is because commercial printers needed to find an efficient solution to these that the discipline of print management was born.
Aside from reducing waste, another thing print management is able to achieve is planning the logistics of all the varied print campaigns so that resources and time are used most efficiently. By scientifically planning and project managing print jobs versus resources and available printers, print management companies are able to maximise efficiency. A classic example is when poorly managed campaigns lead to a maxing out of printers and equimpent during busy periods – if you plan ahead and spread out the jobs you can reduce significant overheads. This in turn can dramatically bring down the costs of printing. Ultimately this means you can print more and generate more return out of your print investment.
Here’s the good bit: print management is no longer the exclusive domain of huge enterprises like Orange. In the past decade the gains in digital printing technology have meant smaller scale print management solutions are possible for small to medium enterprises, meaning that the rest of us can enjoy the same kinds of cost savings the ‘big guys’ have been enjoying for years. So are you making the most of this chance?
Tags: direct mail, flyer printing, print management, printing, project management, publicity, small business