Data 'Theft' Helps In-plant Tell Its Story
Those of you who are paying attention probably know that IPG does a lot of research on the in-plant industry, including a biennial study on trends, services, equipment, insourcing and more. We have published portions of our latest data in the past couple issues, with more set to appear in the July issue.
While at the IPMA conference last week, I saw how one manager put that industry data to use to tell his own in-plant's story and show management how favorably his shop compares to other in-plants.
I was touring the University of Colorado-Boulder's in-plant along with other conference attendees, and manager Al Goranson had copies of his 2015 Report: Standards and Benchmarks on display. He had asked me a while back for permission to incorporate IPG data (so there was no actual thievery involved), and I was pleased to see he had put it to such good use.
University of Colorado's 2015 Report was on display.
He took our sales-per-employee data and showed that his shop ranks above average industry wide. He showed our data on the amount of insourcing in-plants do and compared it with his shop's own revenue, noting how his in-plant continues to increase that number. He showed how his in-plant compared in other areas, such as charging back, marketing and right of first refusal, and took the opportunity to make a pitch for getting the right of first refusal for his own shop to keep money inside the campus. (Every dollar spent at his in-plant, he noted, gives the campus back $0.22.)
It was all around a very clever way to utilize existing industry data to tell an in-plant's story to management and showcase it as a professional operation, on par with industry leaders.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
