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Wider Opportunities #5: Get Planet Friendly |
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There are no translations available.
By Neil Felton, Managing Director, FESPA
17.02.2012
According to the latest FESPA Economy Survey, the issue of sustainability is firmly back on the print agenda. More than 62.7% of those surveyed said that they’re seeing increased demand for ‘green’ printing as a service.
Legislative pressure, compliance issues, corporate social responsibility agendas and end user pressure are all stimulating interest in products that are environmentally responsible, so an awareness of green issues is a modern business imperative.
It could be great opportunity for your print business too, if you can differentiate your entire operation from others on the strength of your environmental credentials. Without doubt it’s a complex and potentially confusing field that needs to take into account hardware, materials, inks, waste management, energy, transport and logistics, etc etc. But make progress in the right direction and you could give yourself a real selling point and attract new, profitable business, all while trimming your overheads and changing your business practices for the better.
Wherever you see the FESPA Planet Friendly logo at FESPA Digital 2012, you can count on expert advice, delivered by FESPA’s long-established network of environmental experts, and while you’re in Barcelona, join your national FESPA association to make sure you’re first in line for future updated editions of our comprehensive Planet Friendly Guide.
From conference sessions to hands-on Planet Friendly workshops and Explore Routes, as well as the expertise of over 300 exhibitors with some fantastic environmental innovations, there’s no better place to understand the responsibilities and opportunities that come with going ‘green’.
Click here for more information on Planet Friendly at FESPA Digital 2012. |
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Wider Opportunities #4: A Material World |
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There are no translations available.
By Neil Felton, Managing Director, FESPA
16.02.2012
For many printers, conventional substrates are their daily bread and butter, but developments in inkjet technology mean that the world is your oyster these days when it comes to what you can print on.
Wood, glass, aluminium or ceramic – there are plenty of examples of PSPs who’ve made the successful leap into printing onto these materials, and who’ve opened lucrative new niches as a result, in areas like interior decor for example.
Quite apart from the more obvious opportunities in commercial areas like soft signage - the scope to print digitally on textile adds another new dimension to the services you could be offering to corporate clients or interior designers, from fabric interior panels and wall hangings, to digitally printed blinds, curtains, and soft furnishings.
Wide format digital print these days is certainly not only about posters and graphics. The unique products that digital printing technology makes possible open up a new universe of one-off print jobs for exacting and quality-conscious customers like designers and architects.
The beauty is that with these jobs, the limits are defined by the customer’s creative imagination and your ability to deliver the solutions they’re looking for. And the best part? Price is often the last point of discussion, not the first.
Explore some of these alternative applications at Big Bucks Cafe at FESPA Digital 2012, and check the Explore Conference schedule for a variety of sessions touching on new substrates. |
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Wider Opportunities #3: Push Your Print |
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There are no translations available.
By Neil Felton, Managing Director, FESPA
15.02.2012
It’s easy to fall into a rut in business, especially if you’re busy and making a reasonable profit. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? But think about the growth opportunities you might be missing by not exploring what more you could do with the equipment you already have. Developments in inks and substrates offer massive scope to create different, stand-out products, often using your existing print hardware.
Experimenting with value-add applications like variable data might open new doors for you, for example, or you could think about how you could broaden the spectrum of POS products you create by using alternative materials or deploying techniques like 3D effects or lenticular printing.
If you’re in POS/POP and you’re not comfortable talking to your customers about how to integrate digital signage with the printed product, could that knowledge gap expose you to competitors in the future? At the very least, make sure you’re up to speed with cross media devices like QR codes and how they can enhance the effectiveness of your printed product within a brand promotion campaign. If you can advise the client in these areas, and maybe even help them with other related services like web design, the potential could be enormous.
As a printer, you have conversations every day that give you the chance to demonstrate your experience of how wide-format print interacts with ‘new’ media to deliver better outcomes for brand marketers. So open your eyes to these new possibilities, and see new windows open for your business.
To see some cutting edge wide format applications and learn more about what’s involved in producing them, grab a coffee at Big Bucks Cafe at FESPA Digital 2012.
And don’t miss the Integrating Print into Other Media Channels sessions at the FESPA Explore Conference on site in Barcelona. |
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Wider Opportunities #2: Broaden Your Horizons |
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There are no translations available.
By Neil Felton, Managing Director, FESPA
09.02.2012
Adding value is the holy grail for most service businesses, but it’s a lesson some printers have perhaps been slow to learn. Focussing on the unit price or production quality of your print output makes for ever-decreasing circles in a market where quality is now a given and the printed product in its own right is increasingly commoditised.
From what I hear, more wide format printers could be embracing the opportunity to offer a more comprehensive solution for customers by bringing services like finishing in house. Move your mind set from square metres of print to the finished product. The customer comes to you with a business challenge, so do your utmost to offer them a complete solution. If that means investing in tools and techniques that move your product beyond print, so be it.
Similarly, don’t confine your thinking to wide format – if you have customers with a broad range of print requirements, consider how diversifying into other formats might help you to win more business from them. You might well have all the necessary skills within your existing team to produce a much broader range of print, so look at your options – an entry-level digital production printer for smaller format work could be a valuable string to your bow.
The bottom line is this: if you can do more for your existing clients, the reward should be better margin, lower business acquisition costs, more control, increased loyalty and repeat business.
 There are some fascinating sessions in the stream on Business Building and Customer Engagement in the Explore Conference at FESPA Digital 2012.
Click here to read more. |
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Wider Opportunities #1: Tweak your Technology |
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There are no translations available.
By Neil Felton, Managing Director, FESPA
30.01.2012
 Our campaign for FESPA 2012 in Barcelona highlights the ‘wider opportunities’ that are open to Digital Man in 2012 and beyond. In a series of five Wider Opportunities blogs between now and the show, FESPA director of events Neil Felton delves into some key themes to give visitors a taste of possible routes to explore at the show.
First let’s take a look at the fast march of wide format technology. The focus is often on the print engine as the core of any print service provider’s business, and of course, a productive and flexible print device that can perform consistently at the level required for the job portfolio in hand is vital to the success of a business.
But while the industry tends to revolve around developments at the high end, it’s worth remembering that accessing new opportunities does not have to mean burdening your business with an expensive top-level printer which offers functionality beyond what your business demands.
By all means stay abreast of how technology is evolving, and consider how it might be part of your future planning, but don’t feel that major hardware investments are the only way to push your business forward.
Sometimes process efficiency can be boosted significantly with other smaller enhancements that help to remove bottlenecks between prepress, print and finishing. Workflow software might be the solution to your headaches, or a web to print solution might help you streamline and automate how you receive jobs into your business and move them into production.
For the inside track on how to optimise your workflow from prepress to finishing and all steps in between, visit Print Shop Live! at FESPA Digital 2012 to see the technology working togther in a simulated print environment. You can even upload your own job to the Print Shop Live! Web site and see it produced across the full specturm of print devices from solvent to latex.
And don’t forget to check the technology sessions within the Explore Conference at FESPA Digital 2012 for the topics that match your investment priorities.
Register now at www.fespadigital.com |
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