business development guide - scor - southeast clinical...

Business Development Guide

About the Capture Program 2

Understanding brands and brand owners’ needs 3

Brand owners and the supply chain 5

Gathering information on brand owners 7

Changing your relationship with the brand owner 8

How to differentiate yourself 9

Advantages of digital printing and impact areas of supply chain 11

The transformation: selling a service vs. selling a label 12

Understanding ROI - SmartPlanner 3.0 for Label Printers 13

Three success stories - Coca-Cola, Geostick, and Innovative Labeling Solution 14

The power of variable data printing 17

Managing your sales force 18

Utilizing the Internet 19

Maintaining your presence in the market 21

Accessing ‘My HP Indigo’ portal and Capture Business Success section 22

Contents >>

Capture is a comprehensive range of business development tools, training, and programs to help you grow your digital business in partnership with HP.

Our focus is to help you make as much return on investment as possible with your press. Not only will we assist your core team on how to use it, we will also give you insights into innovative ways to sell the variety of services and applications that your HP Indigo digital press offers. We are here to support you and help you grow your business for the long term.

We have everything you need to capitalize on all the opportunities that digital printing offers for business development. With a global framework of specialists, training facilities, online applications, tools, partners and programs, we’ve got the expertise, experience, and insight you need to build your business beyond recognition. It’s all part of HP’s ongoing strategy of working in partnership with our customers and to make the most of everything that digital print offers, in order to build businesses for today and tomorrow.

Business Development Guide

This Business Development Guide will start you on your way to explore new ways of building business and growing your company. Whether you are new to digital printing or are a seasoned veteran, you will find valuable tips and suggestions for finding new markets, identifying the right people within the targeted company, and effective ways of showing them how you can add value to brands, improve their supply chain, and save them money.

Read success of other companies that have used HP Indigo digital presses to grow their businesses. By understanding their own strengths and offering their clients innovative ideas, they are able to suggest services that differentiate them from their competitors and allow them be leaders in the market.

The strong demand for digital printing creates opportunities for you to sell your services to a larger market, utilizing the Internet. The Business Development Guide walks you through a number of ways to use the web to find new business and to create online storefronts that enable customers to place orders 24/7.

Welcome aboard!

About the Capture Program

Business Development Guide | Page 2


Over the past ten years the concept of a brand has taken on more importance in the marketplace. Today, in the new global village, with competition based almost solely on price point, companies must add greater value in consumers’ minds by differentiating their products from others. By shaping all the points of contact with their product, brand owners create a brand experience that adds to the expectations and perceptions of the product. Consumers are prepared to pay more for something that they perceive to be special or unique even though the item’s intrinsic value is the same as the competition. Brand owners are very careful to manage their brands in order to capitalize on the perceived value of the brand in the marketplace.

As a label and packaging converter who owns an HP Indigo digital press, you are in a unique position to assist brand owners and offer products and services that will add to the brand value that they are building. It is important for you to understand the process of product development and what place you can play along every step in providing brand owners your services. The value you bring to the brand is not just by supplying a label or package; you will become an advisor and eventually a partner in the process of building and managing the brand.

The scenario below explains the various steps that are taken by a brand owner, from creating a product to the end of life. You will see that at every step of the process, a brand owner can benefit from your advice and services.

Typically, the product starts with the R&D department where brand owners create their products and the packaging idea starts a design

life cycle. The package development requires collaboration between structural design and graphic design. There may be external content demands that arrive from legal or security systems as well. The ability to collaborate with the brand owner and the design agency during this phase is very important. During this phase, they establish their needs and create a number of different label or package concepts. Having the ability to offer high-quality printing on different substrates allows brand owners to compare the same label or package on a variety of materials, helping make a crucial decision on the final product design. The design life cycle ends when the final approval of the design is given.

After the design is approved, the marketing manager may decide to run localized tests using different versions to match regional sensitivities. The results of these tests will help decide what the final product should look like.

Once the product and packaging design is finalized, the next step in the supply chain is to feed the sales channels. At this point in time, the typical discussions will be about forecasts, volumes, and revenue. A digital print service can produce the quantity required using an on-demand or just-in-time system, which has a massive impact on indirect costs such as inventory, handling, storage, and obsolescence. In addition to feeding the sales channel, the brand owner will need point of purchase material and signage. HP Indigo presses come with options that guarantee color consistency. You will be able to offer color consistency across printing technologies and various needs.

During the life of the product, there are needs for on-demand deliveries, specialized

Understanding brandsand brand owners’ needs


packaging for marketing campaigns, and different versions. Your digital press can handle all these requirements and at the same time help reduce overall costs.

By the end of the product life, the concern is to ensure all inventory is gone, and it is time to run some promotions. At that stage, a service of on-demand production can help in allowing special versions to be created for a temporary distribution of remaining inventory.

In addition to offering your services in all of the steps of the supply chain, you can add value to the brand by making each product unique or help protect its security.

Printers who have access to decision makers who are involved in brand authentication have an advantage, as they can suggest various practical services to their customers. In doing so, they are partners rather than suppliers.

The key to success is to simply offer on-demand printing services to various people in the organization. All this clearly shows that a brand owner can enjoy the benefits of a digital printing press in many aspects of a product life cycle. Each of these aspects has a different value, a different impact on the brand owner’s supply chain, and above all, can have large impact on the client’s bottom line.

Although usually not a decision maker, the chief financial officer (CFO) might support on-demand printing in order to maintain a healthy cash position.

In the illustration below, follow the flow of the product from R&D to end-of–life and take notice that almost every step holds an opportunity for digital printing.

>>>>

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R & D Product test

Market test

Volumeproduction

Warehousing

Value ofinventory

Versions fordistributionLanguages

Legal

HandlingLogistics

Promotions

WasteUnsold

Manufacturing

Sales

End of life

Areas of opportunity for digital printing


Your business until now has probably been centered on producing a small amount of large runs a week. The changing marketplace has created a demand for shorter and medium-runs with added features.Your challenge is to identify the opportunities that exist in various places in the supply chain and to make your services an integral part of the process.

When purchasing managers look at a printing invoice, they see a fixed price that affects the bottom line. On a simple level, the cost of the label is applied to the total cost of goods sold (COGS) of the product. The lower the cost, the more profit is possible. Looking at the supply chain from a holistic point of view, there are many hidden costs beyond the price of the labels that are fragmented and difficult to visualize, but have an impact on profits.

According to an InfoTrends report, for $1 that brand owners spend on printing, another $1 to $6 (depending on product segment) is spent on the rest of the supply chain. In understanding the hidden costs, you will be able to make a strong case for digital printing and position your company as the choice for providing these services.

With frequent communications with the brand owner, you can become an integral part of the supply chain.

1. The True Cost of BusinessCommunications StrategicAssessment, Steve Adoniou,Michael O’Leary, InfoTrends, February 2009.

Brand owners and the supply chain


In presenting your case, you must ask brand owners what these costs mean to them:

What is the value of having each product unique?

What is the value of having the product on the shelf within days instead of weeks?

How important is it to be able to change the design at any time, often at the last minute?

What is the value in having the labels and packaging just-in-time instead of the costly warehousing of product?

If a product sits in a warehouse waiting for distribution, money is tied up in inventory unnecessarily. In today’s market, with tightened credit, freeing up money is important to any sized operation. Besides the actual cost of the goods that sit, the extra inventory adds additional expenses for storage, handling, and related overheads. At the end of the season, the brand owners

usually scrap 10-20%1 of their labels. The amount of waste is much greater if the whole supply chain is filled and the product launch is not successful. If the labels are already on the product, this loss can be enormous. That is a lot of money wasted that could be saved by going digital. Compare this to a scenario where the brand owner stocks far fewer products and you print labels on-demand - the indirect internal costs will be reduced immediately. Even with estimated, inaccurate numbers, a brand owner can understand the profits tied up by an antiquated system.

Hidden costs in the supply chain

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Hidden costs in the supply chain

Printing

Internal Creative

External CreativeEditorial

Project ManagementWarehousing / Archiving

Fulfillment / Shipping / Distribution

Inventory Obsolescence


Understanding the needs of your client and being fully aware of the technical capabilities you have to offer will provide you with the tools to change your relationship with the brand owner. In order to really understand what brand owners need, you have to do some basic research. If your only source of information comes from the purchasing manager, you might not be aware of specific needs of the product manager or marketing manager that can be answered by you and your available services. Don’t sit and wait for a call - be proactive and approach the various managers with your ideas.A solid knowledge of the brand owner’s way of working and concerns will allow a perfect match. Having as many contacts as possible within the company will increase your chances of someone talking with you about an upcoming project or asking your advice on a marketing technique they are thinking of employing.

Most brand owners have a similar organizational structure, and after doing your research, you will learn who the right people to contact are.

Gathering information on brand owners

“Anyone who wants to work with us should definitely buy a digital press, or they will find it an uphill struggle in the future”

Paul France,Procter & Gamble

At the top are the senior managers, who have the responsibility of running the company on a day-to-day basis. Below them are departments that deal with various aspects of R&D, marketing, product management, and purchasing.Tapping into the needs of brand owners is possible by joining and participating in the same associations and forums dedicated to brand owners’ concerns. Whether they are part of trade shows, professional associations, or on the Internet, places where brand owners exchange ideas and share their concerns are where you will find opportunities.

By understanding the concerns of brand owners and what is important to them, and by adapting your message, you can position your services in a way that gives real solutions to their needs. It is likely that your proposal will answer the specific needs of the brand owner, which will differentiate your offer from the other suppliers. Address the needs of the brand owner with a proposal that is clear, tangible, and easily understandable.


Changing your relationship with the brand ownerWhen a new product is created, the marketing department works closely with the R&D department in shaping a product that fits the needs of the market. As the product is developed, a close cooperation between R&D, product managers, and designers ensures the introduction of an item that takes into consideration both practical and aesthetic needs.

In most cases, requests for quotes and order placements come through the purchasing manager or a print buyer. The task of purchasing managers is to ensure that their organizations get the highest quality for the lowest price. With many possible suppliers providing services, purchasing managers must decide which converters will be asked to quote on specific jobs. The decision that is made is usually based on known services that the suppliers can deliver in order to be able to easily compare and judge among similar offers. With time, and after building a relationship with the supplier, a brand owner might send jobs to you without asking for a comparative quote, expressing confidence in your abilities.

Workflow tools such as HP SmartStream and our partners’ solutions focus on assisting you to bring about end-to-end solutions for brand owners. An important component in brand execution is the streamlining of incoming orders, which should be made as automatic as possible. Your HP Indigo digital press, and the workflow tools we offer, help address brand owners’ top desire - ‘speed of response’ - by assisting them in getting their products on the shelves in less time.

Together with our workflow partner EskoArtwork, and market-leading MIS partners, we are able to help you help your customers to integrate their ordering to your production and MIS - to further enhance your relationship.

Schedule an appointment with an HP solution architect to learn more about our solutions that will enable you to work closely with the brand owners, from the earliest stage of developing new product ideas through the design, submission of orders, production stages and up to fulfillment at the point of sale.


Most companies are set up in a linear fashion with ordering being funneled through purchasing. This department usually checks the qualifications of potential suppliers in order to understand the range of services each company can offer. Sometimes purchasing departments are very busy, or their assessment of a supplier is of sufficiently high caliber to quote on a job and the qualifications assessment of new suppliers is relaxed. In these cases, new suppliers lose the opportunity to promote their unique capabilities and differentiate themselves from other suppliers.

The purchasing manager is the most common interface between you and the brand owner. You should not jeopardize this relationship by being seen as trying to circumvent the position by soliciting jobs directly from other managers. However, in order to open multiple points of contact within the company and be accepted as a trusted advisor, you need to forge new relationships with all levels of staff including:

Brand managers CFO Marketing managers Supply-chain managers Logistics managers Purchasing staff

By creating an environment where you offer ideas and solutions, instead of selling labels, you can change the way you are seen within the company and avoid issues with the purchasing department. The value you bring to the brand

How to differentiate yourself >>owner should not be seen as a label salesperson, but as a trusted advisor and partner in the management of the brand. Orders will continue to be placed by the purchasing department, but an educated client is able to ask for the services they know you are able to deliver.

You can use different approaches to finding the right people and show them what you have to offer. There will be strong interest from the marketing department, which depending on size, may include a chief marketing officer, vice president of marketing, marketing directors, and marketing communication managers. Marketing staff need help. According to executive search firm Spencer Stuart, the average stay for a marketing professional is just 23 months, and only one in ten keep the job for more than three years. To guarantee continual flow of jobs from the brand owner, make sure you maintain communication with all levels within the company.

One of the best ways of showing your capabilities is to set up an open house that is carefully choreographed to wow the clients and get them excited about the services you offer. The USB flash drive and the Capture section of the website contains a comprehensive Open House Guide and templates to help you plan the event. Even if clients do not place an order right away, you are sowing the seeds that you will carefully cultivate into real buyers. Setting up the demonstration at your site is preferred, in order to have the audience completely disconnected from their busy environment. It also puts you in a better position to show your capabilities in a


quiet and controlled setting. The demonstration has to be tailored to the specific audience, keeping in mind that a marketing manager might not be interested in the same features as a supply-chain manager. Try and highlight features that speak to the particular needs of those attending. The whole purpose of the “demo” is to show your audience how your capabilities can give them the tools to manage their brand as efficiently as possible.

At the demonstration, take a job that was recently produced for the brand owner and adapt it with the functionality you want to showcase.

Print a series of different runs incorporating the following features:

Labels modified with unique colors

Labels with a slightly different logo on each

Labels with text or images that connect to a recent sporting event, seasonal holiday, or famous personality in the news.

You want to give them ideas of what they can do and show them how simple it is to accomplish. Make sure they understand that the digital printing services you offer are not just to help them market their product but to ultimately save them money.The Capture section of the ‘My HP Indigo’ portal contains a lot more information to make an open house successful.

The audience does not have to be sold on the superior quality of your labels and packaging - they want to know what a digital press can do for them. Ask them about their needs and review the advantages of going digital - on-demand and medium runs, with options to include versioning, security and tracking/tracing. Ask them about the “hidden” costs associated with producing a product. They will be happy to hear that your solutions not only improve the brand management, they lower costs as well. Facts and figures are useful in making your point, but make sure that they remember what they saw at the demonstration and that they walk away with samples of your work.

Explain that the field of digital printing is evolving and that you would like to stay in touch. Suggest setting up a short meeting on a regular basis to update them on new trends and possibilities. By staying close to your customers, you will keep the communication channels open and cultivate business in the long term.

The audience does not hhave to beb sold on the superior quality of your labels and packaging


In a recent survey taken for Labels & Labeling Magazine2, brand owners identified specific requests that would benefit their supply chain. They identified the following items:

Speed of response Reduce inventories On-demand deliveries Promotion capabilities Mass customization Short-run capabilities

With the ability to produce low-cost productions, you address all the wishes brand owners have expressed and save them money, too. Your HP Indigo digital press addresses their number one wish - ‘speed of response’ - by assisting brand owners in getting their products on the shelves in less time than using analog presses.

Reduced inventories are a given when using digital presses. They offer the flexibility to deliver

labels and packages either ‘on demand’ or‘just-in-time’ thus reducing inventories and keeping costs down.

Brand owners like the flexibility that short runs afford them by being able to create special runs for promotions, unique markets, or special campaigns.When brand owners add the power of variable data personalization to the mix, they have a powerful tool for the value of their brand.

From a brand owner’s perspective, getting the product on the shelf quickly, reducing inventories and saving on storage and money tied up in product, on-demand delivery of labels, being able to run specific promotions, and the ability to mass customize product are features that every brand owner dreams of having.To propose all these services in addition to shorter run capabilities will make your offering an obvious choice for every brand owner.

2. Study for Labels and Labeling Magazine, Mike Fairley, Labels Group, Tarsus Group plc.

Advantages of digital printing and impact areas of supply chain

Supply chain benefits (brand owner perspective)

Speed of response

Reduce inventories

On-demand deliveries

Promotion capabilities

Mass customization

Short-run capabilities

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Make a sign for yourself and hang it up in a prominent place so you can see it every day - “We offer more than just labels”. You will need to transform your own thinking before you can communicate your message to your staff and clients. Gone are the days of unconditional customer loyalty. As you know, competition can be fierce, and sooner or later, your clients, who were faithful customers in the past, will be offered solutions that are more attractive than your offering. With your purchase of an HP Indigo digital press, you now have the capability of offering a unique and highly sophisticated printing service. A strong understanding of your clients’ needs and your digital printing expertise will make you an invaluable provider of much-needed services.

A print is a print, and from a distance few people can really see a difference. Customers are used to the higher quality that digital printing provides and the price difference is offset by the


The transformation:selling a service vs. selling a label

added value offered by using a digital service. At the end of the day, do customers really care how you print their job if the result matches their expectations? This is one of the reasons why you should talk about services, rather than print quality.Every time a brand owner uses the word “new”, there is a potential for digital print services. For instance new product, new version, new sales channel, new promotion, new sales team, and so on. All of these are opportunities for a proposal from you to offer differences. Unfortunately, these ideas are expressed at different times by a variety of people and unless they are passed to you through purchasing, they represent a lost opportunity. Therefore, only frequent discussions with different managers will enable your visibility within the brand owner’s company. Regular communication between the client and supplier helps change the business relationship to one of a partner who adds value to a situation.

More >>


SmartPlanner 3.0 for Label Printers is a new estimation and business analysis tool developed by HP. SmartPlanner allows you to plan, estimate, and compare the time and costs between producing the job on HP digital or flexo label presses. This allows you to make accurate and informed decisions about the best production method for your label jobs.

The tool generates a report that shows the cost comparison, time comparison, and the crossover for each job. This allows you to make a decision on the best production method. The crossover shows the maximum economic run length for the job.

Understanding ROI - SmartPlanner 3.0 for Label Printers

>> The transformation:selling a service vs. selling a label

The services offered are ultimately what will make a difference to your customers. They include test runs on different substrates, short runs for testing purposes, multiple versions for different markets, anti-counterfeiting measures, as well as variable data printing for marketing or security purposes. Additional services such as MIS integration and web storefronts, enabling customers to check previous jobs and place orders for reprints, tell your clients that you understand them and care for their needs.These are some of the messages that you can use in order to differentiate yourself from other label converters. Not every client requires digital printing all the time, so your conventional printing can complement digital service, or for some clients digital will complement their analog needs. As your clients realize the benefits of your new services, you will find that more jobs will be printed on your digital press instead of the analog.

SmartPlanner 3.0 sample chart

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Three success stories;

When Coca-Cola Israel decided to run a campaign to refresh its Sprite brand and raise brand awareness, it decided to consult its customers. While consumer market research is a normal practice in brand refreshment, the Coca-Cola team took a wholly different approach:It involved its customers in the design of new Sprite cans.The campaign, which ran four weeks, invited consumers to visit the Refresh Your Sprite website and access elements for a shrink sleeve can design. These elements included shapes, pictures, backgrounds, and visual effects. Consumers then selected the elements they wanted to use and laid them out on a shrink sleeve template that included Sprite or Diet Sprite branding, bar codes and other required information. The campaign was supported by advertisements on television, the Internet, and in the local press that encouraged consumers to visit the website. The campaign attracted submissions from consumers from age 10 to 60 and resulted in more than 100,000 individual can designs.Judging the labels was done in two stages. Each week the top 100 designs were chosen by the public. The winning designs were digitally printed by Tadbik Labels Co., Carmiel, Israel, on HP Indigo press ws4500 and displayed at the Tel Aviv port, a dynamic commercial beachfront site that attracted further attention for the campaign. The second tier of judging was carried out by a professional panel of industry-leading judges who chose six final winners. These winning designs were put into full production — amounting to more than 1,000,000 cans — and distributed to retail outlets in Israel where they were available for more than a month.Printing shrink sleeves for the 400 weekly winners was a challenge that could only be met by digital printing. The need for short lead times and very short runs made conventional can printing

unsuitable for this part of the initiative. Printing shrink sleeves — rather than directly onto the can — not only meant that the designs could be printed digitally, but that there could be a seamless workflow from the designs created on the website through to the printing on the digital HP Indigo press ws4500. “With a total of 400 winners over the four-week campaign period, and only 48 cans of each design produced, the versatility of digital printing was demonstrated,” said Boris Demb, production planning manager, Coca-Cola Israel.When dealing with an international company with extremely high brand requirements like Coca-Cola, it is especially important that quality standards are delivered. “While 48 cans doesn’t sound like a lot, the total size of the job was nearly 20,000 shrink sleeves,” said Oded Shany, managing director, Tadbik Labels Co. “In just about every sense, this campaign played to our strengths as well as those of the HP Indigo press ws4500.”For Coca- Cola Israel, the outcome was beyond expectations: “We were delighted with the results of the campaign in every way,” according to Merav Dvori, category marketing manager at Coca-Cola Israel. “We had a target number of surfers to the website of 2.5 million and attracted about 3.5 million, which is half of the population of Israel! To have more than 100,000 of your consumers take the time to design new cans was also extremely gratifying.“We also noted that people had a high regard for the brand and used their designs for special purposes, including an offer of marriage, expressing solidarity with Israel’s kidnapped soldiers, and offering hopes for peace in the region,” Dvori concluded. “These were just some of the wonderful surprises that the campaign generated. We achieved fresh new looks, which certainly add power to the brand.”

Coca-Cola, Israelable for Printing

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Keeping on the leading edge of technical innovation while maintaining customer satisfaction, reliability, quality, and profitability is a formidable challenge, yet Geostick, Uithoorn, Netherlands, has been able to do this virtually since its foundation in 1924. In 1946, Geostick became of the first company in the Netherlands to offer self-adhesive label printing and later became the first converter in Europe to use thin flexo sleeves.While the company’s main activity remains printing labels conventionally — Geostick has eleven flexo presses — its addition of a strong digital printing capability has moved it into the new category of “print service provider” (PSP), meaning that it offers its customers more than just printing. Providing an end-to-end solution for its customers, by printing digitally and/or conventionally, depending on customer or production requirements, is at the heart of Geostick’s approach to label printing. “We have closely followed the technological developments of HP Indigo over the years and from our own research have found HP Indigo presses to be the only machines on the market capable of meeting our customers’ demands,” said Peter Berveling, managing director, Geostick. “The ability to print short runs, often with variable data components, cost-effectively and quickly has obvious business benefits, not only for our customers but for our organization.”In December 2004, Geostick became one of the first companies in Europe to install an HP Indigo press ws4050, adding a second a year later. Soon after the HP Indigo press ws4500 was launched, Geostick installed this press to meet the requirements of its expanding digital printing activities. Geostick’s digital end-to-end solution

includes a prepress solution from EskoArtwork and finishing solutions from AB Graphic International, both HP partners.In December 2008, with three HP Indigo digital presses installed, and growing volumes, Geostick became a beta site for the HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press, and subsequently bought the press. In April 2009, a second HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press was installed.“We have one customer who currently receives from us the same label design printed in ten different languages on ten different rolls,” Peter Berveling explained. “He holds around €1,000,000 worth of stock. Now he wants us to print all ten languages on the same roll so he can label the product in one production run. We can deliver the rolls when he needs them, and not, as now, once a week according to his forecasts. We see many more opportunities like this, including for clear labels in multi-variants or short runs.”Peter Berveling is so confident in the performance of the HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press that he is migrating jobs to digital.The migration of printing jobs from conventional to digital isn’t just about building profitability; it’s also about adding value. Economic short-runs, reduced production times, variable data printing, shorter times to market, and more efficient supply chains are all benefits to customers of digital printing. Peter Berveling concluded: “Digital printing offers unique opportunities to new and existing clients, which if we did not have digital, we could not pursue. The WS6000 will increase the number of these applications we can target and increase our profitability. Other clients will not even know we have moved their work from conventional to digital, which gives us a chance to improve our profitability.”

Geostick, Netherlands

“Digital printing offers unique opportunities to new and existing clients, which if we did not have digital, we could not pursue.”

Peter BervelingManaging directorGeostick, Netherlands



Small but popular, 2-ounce energy shots occupy prime real estate. They’re near the cash register in service station convenience stores and chain pharmacies. Some are from well-known energy-drink companies; others are private labeled. Until very recently, however, many retailers could not afford to carry their own private label energy shots. Now they can.A solution from Phoenix-headquartered CRD Distributors that includes digital printing on the HP Indigo digital presses at Innovative Labeling Solutions (ILS) in Hamilton, Ohio, has opened the door to this market for them.“It’s a huge stride forward,” says Michael N. Ramer, executive vice president and founder of CRD Distributors. “The overwhelming majority of convenience stores are independently owned. These independent retailers, who are generally set up regionally, have chains that consist of less than 200 locations. These small- to mid-sized chains don’t have the ability to get into private label beverage because they cannot meet the beverage manufacturer’s minimum order requirements. Sometimes this is as high as 10,000 cases per SKU. That’s 240,000 bottles or cans. For chains like CVS or 7-Eleven, that’s not a problem, but the smaller chains, the bulk of the industry, don’t have the money to buy those quantities. Even if they did, where would they store the inventory?“Digital printing has been the key to opening up the market. At ILS we can print shorter runs of our energy shot sleeves and still keep our costs low. Before, with plate charges and minimum runs, this was not possible. Right now we’re able to offer a 6,000-bottle minimum order. That’s 500 boxes of 12 or half a pallet. Prior to digital, it was closer to 60,000 with no cost advantage. The digital solution at ILS has made the difference,” Ramer explains. “The turnaround is quick, and smaller

Innovative Labeling Solutions, USAcustomers can be serviced. Any convenience store can afford this.”In addition to the shrink sleeves, Ramer says ILS also provides CRD with coordinated shipping cartons that retailers can transform into POP display boxes that hold the product on the counter.“We have the ability to print multiple versions of the sleeves and cartons to make up a skid,” says Sean Gallagher, technical sales representative for ILS. “This gives CRD the ability to target individuals new to the energy-shot market. It’s an untapped area.”Eye-popping colors and designs are the norm for energy shots. “These are attention grabbers,” Ramer says. “The color has to be of the highest quality. My experience with digital is that the results can be better than flexo with cost advantages. It gives you a finished product that you can depend on.”The HP Indigo Digital presses at ILS are known for their quality reproduction and productivity. “We now have two HP ws4500s and the newly released HP WS6000,” Gallagher says.Gallagher says that ILS is a digital packaging specialist, offering digital labels, flexible packing, shrink sleeves, and folding cartons. He notes that when the company entered the digital market in 2005, ILS did so with the vision of addressing digital as a separate business unit, which they would focus on and grow. “We work with our customers as a strategic partner to develop solutions for their business,” Gallagher says. Ramer believes ILS is succeeding. “We began exploring the digital solution in the spring/summer of 2008. We discussed it with our printers as a way to provide a solution to an industry-wide obstacle. Our suppliers never saw the big picture. Thankfully ILS did. Now it’s paying off for everyone.”


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“My experience with digital is that the results can be better than flexo with cost advantages. It gives you a finished product that you can depend on.”

Michael N. RamerExecutive Vice PresidentCRD Distributors


Every brand owner can make use of variable data printing (VDP) for marketing, versioning, security, tracking/tracing, and counterfeit prevention. With your knowledge of the possibilities and the technical aspects, you are in a position to offer limitless choices. By next year, it is estimated that variable data printing will represent a $14.9 billion market.

HP Indigo provides VDP solutions, powered by EskoArtwork, that are tailored for the needs of labels and packaging production. Unlike any other VDP authoring tool, this one resides in your native design environment – Adobe Illustrator, and includes an integrated barcode engine, security features, and color management for static and variable data.

Your HP Indigo digital press can be used to print a full color, unique element on each printed object at the same time. That element can be a unique number, text, barcode, photo, or image per printed product.The variable data can be visible or not, human or machine readable, alphanumeric or pattern. Codes can be randomly generated or fed from a database. Combined with the brand owner’s infrastructure, labels or packages can beproduct- or palette-specific to assist in tracking and tracing goods.

As counterfeiting in the marketplace increases, the need for secure packaging rises with it,

The power of variable data printing

creating opportunities for the converter to meet demands for smart, secure packaging. With HP solutions, converters can create secure product packaging by including security elements on the printed package and by making each package or label unique through printing differences. Items such as database-registered, serialized barcodes or other variable graphical devices like 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D, or color tiles on pharmaceutical labels to enable e-pedigree and track-and-trace supply chain management, create improved value chain productivity, consumer safety, and brand integrity.

The marketing world is a high-pressure, high-stakes field that needs to produce results and justify expenditures. Marketing managers are constantly on the lookout for programs and customized communications to provide a clear ROI. Introducing VDP to a product can increase consumer brand value without adding to the COGS. Just think of a regular bottle of wine that is now part of a special numbered edition. You are in a position now to claim a piece of the market and deliver the kind of service that is needed.

Since the possibilities of VDP are virtually endless, it helps to start building a table of possibilities as a sort of menu from which your client can choose from. It assists the brand owner to focus on specific choices but also helps to inspire them to think of new and unique uses that add value to the brand.

Customized printing is a key market growth opportunity, and enables you to become a part of the marketing value chain and develop a much stronger relationship with your clients. As a result, VDP represents a new revenue opportunity from value-added services.


Managing your sales forceUnlike the conventional label printing market, digitally printed labels and packages are more of a service and less of a commodity. Responding to the new trends, your business structure will not likely change overnight, but will evolve as more companies modify their ordering patterns and increase the amount of short and medium runs. Techniques and styles of selling will have to be adapted to handle the changing relationship with the brand owner. The typical salesperson, who relies on past years of relationship with a brand owner and waits for the phone to ring needs to adapt to the new opportunities. Because of the impact these services can have on the brand owner’s supply chain, the promotion of possibilities and selling process has to be modified accordingly.

It is clear that the profile of the sales force that acts as the interface with your customers has to be changed, and it indirectly implies that something in the sales environment also has to be modified. Today, sales staff must be able to talk to more people than just purchasing managers. They need to be able to explain and promote the technical aspects and business benefits rather than price alone. In order to advise buyers, sales reps need to be trained in the services you offer. Your sales staff will go from being a label salesperson to a technical and business consultant who needs to educate buyers at the same time as selling. Eventually your staff will become advisors and partners in the brand management.

Each company will need to adapt according to their individual situation, but understanding the challenges means already partially solving them. Since you will likely be continuing with your analog orders, you might choose to start

with one or two key salespeople who have an inclination for the technical and creative sides of labels and packaging. They will need to have a deep knowledge of your company’s capabilities and assets as well as an understanding of what your clients need, in order to be creative in the solutions they offer. It is suggested that they spend time with an HP Indigo digital press operator to gain a complete understanding of the press’ capabilities. Some companies have found it beneficial to appoint business-development staff in order to bridge the span between production requirements and sales activities.

The introduction of new technology will result in many digital jobs, which is a change from typical long runs your sales reps were used to selling. You need to understand your staff and what incentives they need in order adapt to the new business. It is unlikely that staff will actively seek short-run jobs if their motivation is a percentage of the final invoices alone. You may find that a typical order for 100,000 labels becomes 50 orders of 2,000 on-demand labels. Altering your arrangements with your sales staff may be necessary. Consider a higher base salary with compensation based on the yearly overall business from an account or a commission structure based on overall jobs brought in during a quarter, rather than a per job basis. Another sales compensation option is commission based on net profit vs. totals sales. Further remuneration can be made based on customer loyalty, growth, overall volume, and added value.

Your customer will be expecting new ideas and a fresh approach to their requirements. Training your staff to meet those needs and giving them incentives will ensure continued success.


In this day and age every company needs to have a presence on the Internet. A website can be used for many purposes including contact information, showing samples of finished work and capabilities, taking orders online, and articles to help educate your clients. Every day, clients use the web to find suppliers, and you must be accessible to them and provide text on the site that answers their needs. Build your pages using standard search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to attract as much traffic as possible. Search engines like to see a lot of original content. A primer on labels and packaging, a how-to guide on ordering labels, or a labels blog are just some of the possible content you can use to enhance your website.

It can take a long time before search engines “spider” your site and list you in their database. Even after you get listed, unless you employ SEO techniques to move you up in the listings, you may find your company buried behind hundreds of other label converters. Be proactive and look for the business on the web instead of waiting to be discovered. Most search engines have a paid advertising option that enables you to pay for clicks, based on keywords that you select. When a user inserts those specific words in the search engine and you have paid for those

keywords, your ad is displayed in a prominent position. Most campaigns are based on the amount of clicks you receive, not the amount of times your ad is displayed. You start a campaign by selecting the location and languages you are targeting, keywords, and the amount you want to budget per day and month.

Before a potential client picks up the phone or sends you an email, the image you project on the Internet is all they know about you. You have to make an impression and make the customer feel that you are experts at what you do and that you offer something special. Many customers are not fully aware of the advantages of digital printing, so a section explaining the process and the advantages can educate them and make them more receptive to your ideas.

Visitors to your site might not make an immediate order. Their purpose might be to research their options first and contact you when they are ready to move forward. By providing them with as much information as possible, you are starting to build an image in their eyes of a successful, competent supplier. In order to stay in touch with these prospects, include a simple form in a prominent place, encouraging them to give their name and email address to be included in a your

Before a potential client picks up the phone or sends you an email, the image you project on the Internet is all they know about you.

Utilizing the Internet


“low-volume” e-newsletter or to receive samples.

Some companies prefer to remain discrete about their capabilities in order to prevent their direct competitors from knowing exactly what they are able to offer. In this case, it is clear that the sales force of these companies have to carry the entire burden of in explaining to potential customers the capabilities of the company. For these companies, search engines will not locate their websites when potential clients are searching for a supplier.

In the vast majority of the cases, it is better to share your capabilities on the web in order to receive the valuable promotion it brings. The website and e-newsletters are an easy and inexpensive way to convey these awareness messages. Use your website and e-newsletter to announce special promotions and seasonal offers. These messages not only bring in new business but give visitors the confidence the company really works in the 21st century.

Your website can become one of your strongest tools in selling and maintaining existing accounts. In order to reduce the amount of time involved in taking a reorder, some companies are automating their operations with a web-to-print system. HP SmartStream Director helps to set

up unlimited, automated web storefronts that enable customers to log in to their accounts, find completed jobs already in the system, enter parameters for reprints, receive quotes, and place orders. Once an order is submitted, Director takes over by streamlining and automating production by placing the newly ordered job directly into your production queue, at the same time letting you know that you have an order to print. With a web storefront, your doors never close and you can receive orders 24/7, freeing up your sales staff to secure new business, which can also be managed through your web storefront.

Lightning Labels, an American company based in Denver, Colorado, has streamlined its operation and successfully positioned itself as an all-digital label printer. On its web storefront, customers select different labels from a large list of available sizes and substrates. After a customer keys in the answers to a few basic questions, the web storefront displays a quote, even listing the price per label and a quote for upsizing to a larger order. Principals Peter Renton and Steve Smith like to say, “We believe in using only the very latest digital technology to print your labels. And we believe in doing it fast.” Lightning Labels has grown considerably since opening its doors by automating much of their workflow.


The expression “the shoemaker’s children go barefoot” is a way of describing the marketing efforts of many label converters. Many printers assist brand owners with their sophisticated marketing campaigns but tend to disregard their own needs. Alongside the services you will offer to marketing departments, you must continue to market your own services to increase the awareness of your capabilities. Learn from your marketing clients and explore the various possibilities of how you can make your company be seen as the place to obtain labels and packaging solutions.

If you are already advertising, consider adding the message that you are a “one-stop shop” for potential customers who are looking for simplicity and efficiency.Let them know about your services and the success stories of your clients. Every time your company is mentioned in an article, whether it is online or in print, your message of service should be included.

Make sure your messaging is part of your website. Anyone searching for your services will not find them unless you use the right words and describe what you are all about. Your website allows you to show off your capabilities on many levels. Consider including a guide for anyone exploring the various security or marketing benefits of VDP. Build your message in a way that allows your potential clients to learn about your services and turn to you as a way to provide solutions. Your website is a clean canvas, and you have the option of painting the picture of your company in the way you want to be seen.

Be proactive and go out to meet potential clients at trade shows, open houses, and conferences. Partnering with a supplier such as a substrate supplier or finishing machine manufacturer, allows you to share the costs and open the exposure to a larger market. It also allows a wider offering by including the product or services brought in by the partner. Your partnerships can be extended to the Internet, receiving exposure through your partner’s websites as well as trade associations.

Maintaining your presence in the market


Accessing ‘My HP Indigo’ portal and Capture Business Success section

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Through My HP Indigo, HP offers services to support you at every stage of your business evolution. Working with HP is more than buying a press, it is a continued partnership with a company that is interested in your long-term success.

www.hp.com/go/myindigoweb c Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company L.P.Q5397-05670. This is an HP Indigo digital print.

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