The New Printshop Personnel

Written on Nov 15, 2010 by in Career, Future of Print, Management

Owner -> Visionary Leader

  • Owners will need to hone their leadership and visionary skills. They will need to realize how print is being challenged and will ultimately fit into the new information and communication ecosystems. After identifying paths for future growth, owners will have to convince the other stakeholders that the new business plan is the one to follow. This will require leadership and courage.

Estimator/Planner/Shop Supervisors -> Logistics Traffickers

  • Changes in software and printing methods will impact the traditional roles of estimators and planners. As business models migrate to self-service, Internet ordering, the burden of quoting and agreeing on a price is shifted to software and the end-user, not the estimator. Planners, who optimize the work for production, will see less work due to more intelligent software routing and the instant flexibility of  digital printing. What will be needed is someone who can monitor and make adjustments to the production process.

Customer Service Representative -> Customer SWAT Team

  • No, the new customer service representatives will not be toting weapons and explosives (although they might sometimes feel like it). Instead, they will be armed with “social” weapons and the tactics of “now”. Businesses are quickly realizing that the customer has the means and the will to get noticed, if they feel ignored or unheard (Google “Comcast sucks” to get the point). These changes are not at all bad, if a little scary. Your business can use social channels such as Twitter and Facebook to put a human face on the business. Transparency (admitting when you screw up) and timeliness (the ability for other humans to quickly resolve problems) are the keys going forward.

IT -> Specialized IT

  • The printing business is a technology business. Printers need networks, software administration, information management, social media platforms, and more importantly the need to develop software solutions! As the march of mobile continues due to capabilities and saturation, look to add products and services that can be purchased this way. Although infrastructure costs will go down, in part from the move to the cloud, the cost for technical know-how will continue to increase. Almost every industry today employees some percentage of IT professionals which translates into a competitive labor market. Partnering or contracting these services might be more attractive.

Prepress Operators/Press Operators/Bindery Operators -> Production Staff

  • Cloud computing, integrated production workflows, and digital printing with inline finishing, will reduce the total number of production staff needed. Automation and mechanization will reduce the higher skill sets currently needed to run conventional equipment. The historical divide between each department will quickly blur.


Leave a comment: How do you see it changing?

photo credit: healthserviceglasses
Print Friendly
2 Comments - Leave a comment!
  • http://twitter.com/ToughLoveforX Michael Josefowicz

    So, another thing that might be an essential part of a successful print shop is a team approach to sales. I’ve been at a number of conferences and from what I can see wherever it’s be implemented it works pretty well.

    If the reality is that the real value to a customer is helping them solve a communication using the most appropriate print tools, it’s not plausible to expect that most people have all the required skill sets. No doubt some do. They are the “stars.’ Bu to expect a salesforce to be all stars makes no sense. The primary reason is that stars will leave to either start their own businesses, become brokers or become free agents getting top dollar for their talent.

    For a business trying to get to sustainable growing revenue it’s a non starter.

    On the other hand, it’s relatively easy to find people both on the sales force and throughout an organization who are good at one of the necessary, but not sufficient, talent and skill sets.

    The hunter – gregarious a “people person.” Probably describes many sales people. They love the hunt and are not bad at it. But that personality is precisely the opposite of the logistics person – usually found in production or customer service. Detail oriented risk averse. In the path to innovation it also needs business development dna. New solutions are about new business models and ways to earn revenues from already in place technology.

    If a team of three can collaborate and a bring together their different perspectives and “maniacally” focus on solving the customer’s proximate problems, it’s actually not all that hard to generate both innovation, sustainable revenue and earn the trust of the customer going forward.

    • http://twitter.com/clayforsberg Clay Forsberg

      Excellent post and excellent comment. If I may be most humble and add an additional person. I will call them the sourcer. This person is essentially a researcher. Their role is to find the right people to target and to gather as much info as possible on them.

      I had a dedicated sourcer in my recruiting firm and she could give you a full roster of virtually everybody in the firm, including the backroom and what their expertise was. Sales people generally aren’t very good at this and have a tendency to just talk to whoever they can, claim them to be influencers, and spend an inordinate amount of time on nothing.

      Just a thought. Otherwise, very comprehensive dialogue.

Welcome! Sign-up below to get have-it-your-way updates.