Business Management - In-plant Justification

The cost of acquiring new customers is reaching untenable proportions. Appointments with prospects are nearly impossible to obtain, print buyers seem less knowledgeable about what's required or what's important, and price too often appears to be the driving factor. Mirroring suppliers' experiences are buyers' situations. Support staff have often been radically reduced, buyer responsibilities have almost always been expanded, and written specifications of what's needed are practically non-existent. As a reflective rule of thumb, whenever

Managers can help employees improve themselves by asking them questions, not just giving them answers. by Doug Silsbee hen a child asks you for help with homework, do you tell the child the answers and do the homework for the student? Of course not! Most adults know that to do so would be to shortcut the child's learning process. Instead, we help children study by asking them questions that guide them through the problem-solving process. The objective is to help them learn to think and solve problems for themselves, not to provide them the answers. Obvious, right? So why don't we

A chargeback system can help an in-plant acquire the latest technology, improve service, grow business and secure its future. By Mike Renn Why charge back? Wouldn't time be better served selling services, justifying equipment or working on process improvement? Wouldn't an across-the-board allocation of an in-plant's operational expenses be simpler? There would be no worries about cost recovery or justifying the operation's existence. Leave chargeback to the entrepreneurs. Correct? Don't bet the shop on it. You'd lose it. Even in-house printers that currently utilize a chargeback can learn how to better leverage the benefits of this billing system. A chargeback system can

By uniting data center and in-plant printing services under one roof, organizations are discovering extreme workflow solutions. By Maggie DeWitt With today's emphasis on doing business better, faster and more cost-effectively, it was inevitable that management would see the wisdom of merging in-plant printing services with data centers. For those who have not done so already, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is, with each day that goes by, your parent organization is squandering resources, losing operating efficiency and wasting money. The good news is, the task is not as daunting as you might think, and the two departments

As offset printing gives way to high-speed digital printing, your operators may need time to adjust and accept the changes. By Erik Cagle When Georgia Perimeter College installed an HP Indigo digital color press a year ago, a special training challenge lay ahead for Barbara Lindsay, assistant director of Printing Services. Among the offset press operators who needed to learn how to use the digital device was a 65-year-old man with limited computer experience. "Other than surfing the Web, he was not a computer user," Lindsay relates. "But he was courageous enough and interested in learning a new technology. Plus, he thought it would

Making money for your organization's bottom line by insourcing can mean all the difference in whether or not your in-plant survives.

Why on earth do some departments in your organization not send their printing to the in-plant? Supporting your in-plant is, in effect, supporting your organization from within. An organization that is strong from within can stand on its own and support those around it.

By focusing on financial management, customer focus and marketing, one can develop their in-plant to run more like a business. But what does that mean and how does one run an in-plant like a business?

While Xerox technicians were developing the new DocuTech 100 and 120 copier/printers, they did a lot more than just talk among themselves. Xerox assembled two customer advisory councils to look at its plans and offer advice. One of these teams was made up entirely of in-plant managers. "In-plants represent a substantial part of our current market placements," explains Peter Fallon, Xerox product marketing manager. Consequently, Xerox wanted to make sure it was developing a product that met in-plants' needs. The in-plant panel comprised seven managers. One of them was Susan Anderson, director of Printing Services at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In a

The secret to surviving as an in-plant is to become indispensable. By Mike Renn What is your cost per color copy?" The potential client telephoned looking for a simple answer that would help her decide on a print provider. I couldn't fault her. It would appear that digital copiers have overtaken the printing services business. Everything has been reduced to cost per copy and clicks. Or has it? "We don't have an off the rack cost per copy. We customize the price to the project," I replied. In this case, the volume and simplicity of the specifications allowed me to use a less-expensive process