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The multinational mobile phone company Orange is one of the biggest cell providers in the UK and Europe. This is due in large part, much like any other big company, to the fact that they spend large amounts of cash on advertising and branding. A large proportion of this advertising involves a huge proportion of physical printing of some kind. This includes things like flyer printing, booklets and pamphlets, consumer magazines, billboard posters and direct mail materials. It is completely feasible that such a huge company would spend vast amounts on this type of work.
However according to print industry journal PrintWeek, Orange spends approximately £7m per year on what is known as ‘print management‘. Not on the actual costs of printing; this is spent on a company to actually manage all their printing activities. In these times of recession this amount of money may seem excessive, even for such a big company. Yet that thought wouldn’t last long if you understood what print management is capable of. Ultimately this is what it comes down to. Companies which spend money on a print management specialist actually tend to save money compared to those who try to manage their printing by themselves.
A big chunk of the money saved is due to lowering the amount of wasted print material. Every year, millions of dollars are lost forever in the ‘collateral damage’ caused by color calibration mistakes, messed up print jobs, typographical errors and the like. Where large scale printing takes place this happens frequently and is written off as an expected loss. It is because commercial printers needed to find an efficient solution to these that the discipline of print management was born.
On the other hand, an equally large part of the cost savings brought about by print management are through logistical planning and project management. Print jobs and schedules are planned in scientific detail to reduce the cost associated with electricity use, overheads and purchase of unneccesary equipment. A classic example is when poorly managed campaigns lead to a maxing out of printers and equimpent during busy periods – if you plan ahead and spread out the jobs you can reduce significant overheads. This in turn can dramatically bring down the costs of printing. So you can either achieve the same amount of output for less money, or reinvest the savings in more print marketing and ultimately more ROI.
The good news is that print management isn’t exclusive to huge multinational corporations like Orange. With digital printing revolutionising the industry in the past few years print management is now actually accessible to SMEs who have relatively far smaller printing campaigns to consider. Is your business taking advantage?
