Harnessing Disruption: Reinventing Your Business to Leverage Digital Technologies
Nearly every industry is undergoing a major transformation that is being driven by new and emerging technologies, and none has been more heavily impacted than the printing industry. This is only exacerbating the challenges that today’s business owners already face. Josh Linkner’s recently published book entitled The Road to Reinvention: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation provides a clear path for firms that want to transform their business models to achieve success today and in the future. According to Linkner, businesses can struggle for a variety of reasons, yet one of the most common — and easily avoidable — is failing to reinvent.
In the Canon Solutions America-sponsored webinar Reinventing Your Business to Leverage Digital Technologies presented by Printing Impressions and In-Plant Graphics magazines, InfoTrends Group Director Barb Pellow states, “Linkner defines reinvention as the necessary process of proactively creating a new future. In today’s multi-channel world, your customers are reinventing their business models. You need to develop a strategy for partnering with them as they re-evaluate how they are marketing to their customer base.”
“Businesses can struggle for a variety of reasons, yet one of the most common?—?and easily avoidable?—?is failing to reinvent.”
In this webinar, Pellow shares industry data on the emerging services that printers are offering their customers as they make the digital transformation. Pellow lists several sources while making her points, including Publisher’s Weekly and Harvard Business Review. These articles all support the notion that, although print is most certainly not dead, today’s printers must rethink and transform their business strategies to remain competitive.
According to InfoTrends’ forecast data, U.S. digital production color volumes will reach 320 billion and account for 61% of total volumes in 2018. During her introduction, Pellow builds the case for inkjet technology and its ability to support market growth. Pellow believes that inkjet will enable a greater range of marketing and book and pamphlet printing applications. It will be used for new, more personalized applications and will also compete with offset for traditional print volumes. “Service providers of all sizes must pay attention to inkjet developments as they build strategies for the future,” she advises.
Joining Pellow in this webinar are two executives from Content Critical — Chief Operating Officer Fred Van Alstyne and Chief Technology Officer John Slaney. Throughout the session, they talk about the steps that Content Critical is taking to drive disruption and transform its business model. From technological investments and staffing through sales and operations, the duo makes a compelling argument about the importance of reinventing your business.
For businesses that are willing to take the necessary steps toward reinventing themselves, the possibilities are endless. Van Alstyne notes, “This is really an exciting time to be in our business. We are experiencing double-digit revenue growth, and we’ve become much more competitive for highlight color logo transactional print runs. More and more companies are looking to outsource, so we’re also capturing work from small and medium-sized in-plants.”
Content Critical has taken on the challenge of overhauling its print production operations so they better align with its new portfolio of services. According to the company, some of the keys to success include smarter management of print resources, accelerated response rates, unified work processes, converging data streams, and ensuring that the right information gets to the right person at the right time. Together with Canon Solutions America, Content Critical has begun a collaborative journey in achieving production excellence. This in-depth webinar explores the company’s transformation as it continues to unfold.