Winning the Outsourcing Fight
It happened at the University of Maine like it happens to in-plants everywhere. A vendor approached the director of purchasing with a pitch to take over printing. Tales of costs savings and collaboration beguiled the director, who promptly set up a meeting. The in-plant manager was not invited.
“The part that was really scary was, it came up at a time when we had a new boss over our area and there was also a brand new director of purchasing,” relates Tammy Young, director of Printing & Mailing Services at the Orono, Maine, university.
In an article in In-plant Graphics' April issue, we talk with four in-plants that faced outsourcing threats to find out what happened and how they justified their operations. The threats came from four different sources:
- After deciding to move their in-plant, officials questioned why the organization needed a print shop in the "paperless" age.
- The organization’s desire to reallocate its resources led to a decision to outsource printing.
- An outside vendor approached a new executive with a tempting, “cost saving” offer.
- A new purchasing agent, eager to look like a hero, invited a vendor to give a sales presentation to upper management.
Challenges like these stem from the false belief that an organization can make printing costs vanish by eliminating the in-plant.
“Closing the in-plant printing facility creates the illusion that the cost of printing disappeared,” notes NAPL Consultant Howie Fenton. “It doesn’t really disappear, of course, it simply moves from one budget to many budgets.”
Find out what happened at the University of Maine and at three other in-plants in our April issue.
