The cutoff date for submitting applications for the Crest Scholarships is Thursday July 31, 2008.
Please go to www.crestfoundation.org for details and to submit a scholarship application.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Shaun’s Corner (Expanding Your Display Graphics Business)
By Shaun Meany
President, The PEiR Group
On the road recently in New York, Boston and Paris I see wide format color everywhere.
In airports, train and subway stations, tunnels, escalators, garages, retail shops to hotel elevators, hotel lobbies – all this signage clamoring for attention and all communicating their respective messages. The interesting thing is I am reading them. The size and the appealing graphics have me emotionally involved, I think. They draw my eye and lead to retention of branding and messaging for things, places and activities I may want to buy, visit, or take part in.
To my eye, a convergence is occurring in the wide format printing business. Sign shops, photographic retailers, big box retailers, quick copy shops and reprographers are all beginning to migrate into the grand format display graphics market space.
In light of this, and the opportunity the scenario presents, I find myself writing down a few questions reprographers may need to ask themselves in the days ahead:
• Am I prepared to embrace this market opportunity?
• Can I handle the investment required to be a player in this market? Not just the equipment (aka printers) but the routers, rips and floor space need to produce this stuff. Do I have the color expertise and the sales and marketing personnel to be successful?
What are the risks?
• How long is the window of opportunity going to be open?
• When will the service be commoditized?
• How do I ship or deliver these prints?
• What about installation?
• Are there Web-to-Print software solutions available?
• What are the killer applications?
• Who’s making money? And how are they doing it?
Lastly, but perhaps the most important question of all to ask in the face of this new-found growth in the wide-format printing business is: What can The PEiR Group do to help you prepare and reap the rewards offered by this next growth area in the reprographics?
The answer is a mere phone call or email away. Don’t put it off. We’re waiting to hear from you!
All the best,
Shaun
Bid Communications
By David Swider/Sub-Hub
Who would have guessed that reprographers were looking for additional ways to generate revenue?
We received several inquiries about Sub-Hub after our last article in POV, with many people asking how an independent reprographer could create multiple digital revenue streams by providing Sub-Hub to their General Contractors. We reviewed what the competitors are up to last week. This week we will review where a reprographer can capture digital revenue using Sub-Hub.
Currently, reprographers are generating revenue with Sub-Hub in some of the following ways:
Providing Sub-Hub to their General Contractor – Once the reprographer has purchased the master license to Sub-Hub (PEiR discounts apply), they may provide Sub-Hub to every GC looking for a digital plan room combined with a powerful bid communication tool. The reprographer sets the market price for Sub-Hub (Suggested retail value: $4,500 or more per GC) giving the reprographer flexibility to custom create an offer that meets their client’s needs.
Fax Fees – The Sub-Hub offering includes 10,000 faxes per month for the reprographer providing Sub-Hub. Here is an example of the return on the faxes:
1 General Contractor doing 1 project per month:
# of Subs. in the GC database (1000)
# of Transmissions
Original Invitation to Bid 1 x 1000 1000
Addendum (many times there are multiple) 1 x 1000 1000
Final notification 1 x 1000 1000
Total number of potential transmissions on 1 project 3000
@ a discounted rate of $.08 / transmission x.08
Total revenue to the reprographer $240
What if this GC did 3 projects? $720
What if 5 GC’s did 3 projects? $3,600/ month
It adds up quickly, and this is just the fax revenue bucket…
Document Management Scanning/Uploading – Did you know the average document management fee in the market is anywhere from $1.25 -$2.00 per page? This is another potential revenue bucket.
Additional Print Orders – With Sub-Hub you will be the only reprographer listed in the drop when GC’s and Subs click to buy hardcopy plans. Are you providing a tool to help lock out your competitors now?
Archiving – In today’s litigious world, GC’s are asking for document archiving and they are looking for more than a CD of large format prints. The small format prints are of equal importance, not to mention the dates and times they were transmitted. Is there any reason you shouldn’t capture that revenue?
Last week’s meetings were full and many reprographers are beginning to offer Sub-Hub to their local GC’s. Why not see for yourself by typing: sub-hub.webex.com and browse meetings to see how you may succeed with this offering. Meetings are held every Tues. and Thurs. at 8:30am – 10:00am PST.
Editor’s Note: For direct questions please contact David Swider at dswider@sub-hub.com or (925) 658-9025. The “Bid Communications feature” will become a regular feature of Point of View.
Legacy Pricing
By Dan Davis, PEiR Group Technology Consultant
Let’s face it; competition is not getting any easier. In order to stay competitive, you need to really keep an eye on costs, while you tweak pricing to ensure that you will still be in business tomorrow!
I spend a good deal of time working with different companies to migrate their price lists into PlanWell and EWO. I am constantly amazed at the variety of ways that our industry scales, twists and discounts pricing. Whenever I encounter a novel pricing scheme, I always ask were it came from. Frequently, I hear something like this: “Our price list was developed by the previous owner. We’ve just raised them from time to time.”
Back in the day, we ran Diazo prints. The first set through the machine was a test set, and we used special non-print pencils to speed code the originals for the paper that we were using. As we ran more sets through we would develop a bit of a rhythm and, as a result, we would get a bit more productive. Therefore, it made sense to have a pricing structure which fairly represented the labor involved in the process depending on the size of the order. Diazo price lists of five or more levels made a good deal of sense.
Today, however, those older schemes really don’t add up. Our machines are automated, different medias are fed on demand, and it takes just as long to print the 300th set as it takes to print the second set. True, there will be some economy of scale for a huge job but then again, how many huge jobs have you billed off of your price list lately?
If in fact you are dealing with a legacy price schedule, it may be a good time to crunch some numbers and see if it still makes sense. Reducing the number of tiers in your price list will make it easier to quote a job, and will give you the opportunity to generate a price increase by eliminating some of the upper tiers.
Another frequent answer is: “Our price list reflects the way our competitors charge.”
This may very well be true. But is it still true when you consider your walk-in or list price business? Your price list after all has very little impact on your negotiated accounts. When you close a deal with a new account, you may have to tweak things for competitive reasons, but it is very important that you have well thought out pricing structures for your other products that will allow you to remain profitable even with a few loss leaders.
So, if you are thinking about raising one or more of your prices in order to cover your increases in costs, you may find that simplifying your price list may be a good way to get started.
Let’s face it; competition is not getting any easier. In order to stay competitive, you need to really keep an eye on costs, while you tweak pricing to ensure that you will still be in business tomorrow!
I spend a good deal of time working with different companies to migrate their price lists into PlanWell and EWO. I am constantly amazed at the variety of ways that our industry scales, twists and discounts pricing. Whenever I encounter a novel pricing scheme, I always ask were it came from. Frequently, I hear something like this: “Our price list was developed by the previous owner. We’ve just raised them from time to time.”
Back in the day, we ran Diazo prints. The first set through the machine was a test set, and we used special non-print pencils to speed code the originals for the paper that we were using. As we ran more sets through we would develop a bit of a rhythm and, as a result, we would get a bit more productive. Therefore, it made sense to have a pricing structure which fairly represented the labor involved in the process depending on the size of the order. Diazo price lists of five or more levels made a good deal of sense.
Today, however, those older schemes really don’t add up. Our machines are automated, different medias are fed on demand, and it takes just as long to print the 300th set as it takes to print the second set. True, there will be some economy of scale for a huge job but then again, how many huge jobs have you billed off of your price list lately?
If in fact you are dealing with a legacy price schedule, it may be a good time to crunch some numbers and see if it still makes sense. Reducing the number of tiers in your price list will make it easier to quote a job, and will give you the opportunity to generate a price increase by eliminating some of the upper tiers.
Another frequent answer is: “Our price list reflects the way our competitors charge.”
This may very well be true. But is it still true when you consider your walk-in or list price business? Your price list after all has very little impact on your negotiated accounts. When you close a deal with a new account, you may have to tweak things for competitive reasons, but it is very important that you have well thought out pricing structures for your other products that will allow you to remain profitable even with a few loss leaders.
So, if you are thinking about raising one or more of your prices in order to cover your increases in costs, you may find that simplifying your price list may be a good way to get started.
Monday, June 16, 2008
"Shaun's Corner" - Is Your Champagne Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
By Shaun Meany
President, The PEiR Group
I am reminded almost daily that the US economy is in dire straights and consumer confidence in the economy continues to weaken.
Pick your culprit: newspapers, web sites, business journals – all seem to be carrying the latest “doom and gloom” headline. A recent report in one of the construction industry’s leading market intelligence consulting organizations, FMI, predicts the downturn in construction will continue through 2008 into 2009. FMI even went so far as to revise their 2009 forecasts for nonresidential construction – saying it would be ever so slightly down from earlier projections.
Reading all this, you know how closely related our industry is and how we all feel the heat from the same fires. An article in the June 2nd issue of the International Herald Tribune (the global edition of the NY Times) stated that credit conditions have begun to tighten in Europe just as they have in the United States, and the European Commission's monthly survey of economic sentiment dropped unexpectedly in April to its lowest level since August 2005.
Historically, there has always been a lag in the impact that the U.S. economy has on other economies, so if you are reading this newsletter outside of the U.S. and you think that you are immune to current economic conditions you may want to re-think your position.
Some of the ideas we’ll get into below may be helpful for your organizations, as well.
With all of these experts predicting a softening economy and, in particular, a continued decline in construction, what is a reprographer to do to weather these market conditions?
Earlier in the year I shared a few strategies I felt could be used to counter the affects of the economic downturn (POV # 109; January 11, 2008). It’s time to build on some of these strategies. In the last few months I’ve been travelling heavily, talking with scores of reprographers in the US, Canada, UK, and France. I found that no matter where you are or what country you may be in there is a commonality of experience we all can use to our benefit.
Visiting with a U.S. reprographer recently I was informed that their volume of black and white large format printing has dropped precipitously. They have been able to offset the loss of this print volume by going to developers, home-builders and others with excess real estate inventories and helping these clients to market these properties. As a result, printing volumes and profits have increased significantly in their large and small color departments. Another contributing factor to this reprographer’s success was their willingness to make investments in capital equipment (solvent based wide format printers) even during these tough economic times.
Here’s some more “shop talk” and a few sales initiatives that could be helpful in growing your sales.
Call on government, institutions, commercial property and hospital facilities’ managers and offer to scan and archive their record (as-built) documents on to CD Roms or into PlanWell.
Let your General Contractors know that you can help them with their bid communications. We have been talking about Bid Communications with members for several years now. Many of our PlanWell Enterprise customers have deployed BidCaster to their customers and are finding some real revenue opportunities as a result. In times like these bidding is more competitive than ever. Your GC’s need solutions to automate the laborious task involved with managing this aspect of their business.
Give them some. PEiR members looking for an entry level bid communications solution for their customers can now offer Sub-Hub. For more information on Sub-Hub please review the article Bid Communications in this issue.
Expand your business by calling on non-AEC customers. Here is a good list of potential businesses that need and want our reprographic services. As the economy softens more promotions and advertising is required to keep existing customers and to attract new ones. Try these sectors on for size:
Chain Restaurants (Menus, Signage, Employee Training and Development)
Educational Institutions (Good candidates for FM’s)
Hotels (Both LF and SF Color Printing)
Corporate Marketing and Communications Departments (Both LF and SF Color Printing)
Retail Stores (POP Signage)
Trade Shows (Displays and brochures)
Real Estate Brokers and Agents (direct mail and follow-up campaigns)
Car Dealerships (direct mail and follow-up campaigns)
I am sure many of you are already trying to find new areas of sales revenue to offset the loss in revenues from your AEC clientele.
It is important to realize that the design-build industry is not expected to turnaround anytime soon. It is imperative that you diversify your business beyond your traditional markets and services.
In every marketplace there are businesses that are thriving and others who need your services in order to survive. Find them. The future is yours to shape. If you stay positive, creative and focused you can find the sort of opportunities you need to grow your business and defy the headline writers.
Cheers,
Shaun
Bid Communications
By David Swider
Director of Business Development, Sub-Hub
Have you noticed how crowded the Invitation to Bid and Project Communication space has become in the last few months?
Increasingly, General Contractors (GC’s) are looking for ways to be more efficient in sending Project Communications to their Owners, Architects, Subcontractors and Suppliers while still linking to their digital documents. The competition is trying to secure the project communication business and in many cases this is happening at great cost to the reprographer’s digital and print revenue.
How are these companies “taking” our business? Every day our competition is calling on our GC’s, offering to provide them with an easy-to-use tool for project communications. They tell our GC that all they need to do is upload the digital plans/specs. or other documents via their software and it will ensure that their subs and suppliers have everything they need to know about their project and submit their bids.
What is compelling the GC to use these services? They will tell the GC that since your local reprographer needs a digital file to fulfill print orders, and you give that reprographer the “Paper Revenue,” your reprographer should give you and all of your subs a copy of that digital file FREE. To add insult to injury, they will also tell the GC that in addition to providing the free digital files, if your reprographer is charging you more than $.05 a square foot they are not looking out for your best interests.
Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, we either haven’t spoken to enough of our GC’s or we better start asking our GC’s if they are interested in this service.
What can we do to keep our hands on this revenue and our GC’s, while still giving them a valuable service that increases efficiency in their business? At the end of the day, these competitive communication companies require one thing….the Digital File. Without the digital file these competitors do not stand a chance. Generally speaking, each of us already has access to that file currently in the workflow at all our shops.
Many of us are familiar with the Bidcaster program, which allows for our customers, or us as their reprographic services providers, to send ITB’s out to their subs based on Project Documents we currently manage for them in PlanWell. Many reprographers are now utilizing Bidcaster’s ITB functionality, along with the document management prowess of PlanWell, to make them increasingly more revenue as more and more of their customers are requiring these types of digital solutions performed by their reprographer.
Now, reprographers have another alternative called Sub-Hub. Sub-Hub is a digital plan room (as opposed to a Document Management system) combined with an easy to use bid communication tool. As the reprographer you can now add revenue to your shops by creating, converting and posting the digital files, and then providing the backbone (via Sub-Hub) for a private digital plan room for your GC, and their subs. You can also fulfill any print orders that the GC has sent out to their subs with the click of a button. Your GC will appreciate having the control of the documents and the communication process all under one roof.
Regardless if your GC is looking for an alternative to his FTP site and a more efficient way to contact subs on jobs, or if his scope of work demands complete Project Document Management services and a comprehensive ITB Solution, we have a tool that will keep you in the game, increase efficiency for your GC customers, and even make money for you!
If you have not yet investigated Sub-Hub and the many benefits it offers to both you AND your GC’s in today’s rapidly changing reprographics environment, then type: sub-hub.webex.com and browse meeting to see how you may succeed with this offering. Meetings are held every Tues. Thurs. at 8:30am – 10:00am PST.
Editor’s Note: For direct questions please contact David Swider at dswider@sub-hub.com or 925-658-9025. The Bid Communications feature will become a regular feature of Point of View.
Director of Business Development, Sub-Hub
Have you noticed how crowded the Invitation to Bid and Project Communication space has become in the last few months?
Increasingly, General Contractors (GC’s) are looking for ways to be more efficient in sending Project Communications to their Owners, Architects, Subcontractors and Suppliers while still linking to their digital documents. The competition is trying to secure the project communication business and in many cases this is happening at great cost to the reprographer’s digital and print revenue.
How are these companies “taking” our business? Every day our competition is calling on our GC’s, offering to provide them with an easy-to-use tool for project communications. They tell our GC that all they need to do is upload the digital plans/specs. or other documents via their software and it will ensure that their subs and suppliers have everything they need to know about their project and submit their bids.
What is compelling the GC to use these services? They will tell the GC that since your local reprographer needs a digital file to fulfill print orders, and you give that reprographer the “Paper Revenue,” your reprographer should give you and all of your subs a copy of that digital file FREE. To add insult to injury, they will also tell the GC that in addition to providing the free digital files, if your reprographer is charging you more than $.05 a square foot they are not looking out for your best interests.
Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, we either haven’t spoken to enough of our GC’s or we better start asking our GC’s if they are interested in this service.
What can we do to keep our hands on this revenue and our GC’s, while still giving them a valuable service that increases efficiency in their business? At the end of the day, these competitive communication companies require one thing….the Digital File. Without the digital file these competitors do not stand a chance. Generally speaking, each of us already has access to that file currently in the workflow at all our shops.
Many of us are familiar with the Bidcaster program, which allows for our customers, or us as their reprographic services providers, to send ITB’s out to their subs based on Project Documents we currently manage for them in PlanWell. Many reprographers are now utilizing Bidcaster’s ITB functionality, along with the document management prowess of PlanWell, to make them increasingly more revenue as more and more of their customers are requiring these types of digital solutions performed by their reprographer.
Now, reprographers have another alternative called Sub-Hub. Sub-Hub is a digital plan room (as opposed to a Document Management system) combined with an easy to use bid communication tool. As the reprographer you can now add revenue to your shops by creating, converting and posting the digital files, and then providing the backbone (via Sub-Hub) for a private digital plan room for your GC, and their subs. You can also fulfill any print orders that the GC has sent out to their subs with the click of a button. Your GC will appreciate having the control of the documents and the communication process all under one roof.
Regardless if your GC is looking for an alternative to his FTP site and a more efficient way to contact subs on jobs, or if his scope of work demands complete Project Document Management services and a comprehensive ITB Solution, we have a tool that will keep you in the game, increase efficiency for your GC customers, and even make money for you!
If you have not yet investigated Sub-Hub and the many benefits it offers to both you AND your GC’s in today’s rapidly changing reprographics environment, then type: sub-hub.webex.com and browse meeting to see how you may succeed with this offering. Meetings are held every Tues. Thurs. at 8:30am – 10:00am PST.
Editor’s Note: For direct questions please contact David Swider at dswider@sub-hub.com or 925-658-9025. The Bid Communications feature will become a regular feature of Point of View.
CREST Scholarship Candidate Selection Underway
On May 13, after the opening of the IRgA 2008 Annual Convention & Trade Show, a scholarship foundation created specifically to assist the children of our industry employees was announced at a gala event held in the ballroom next door to the trade show floor. It was called: CREST – the Children of Reprographic Employees Scholarship Trust.
Before the night was over, more than $350,000 was raised for the fund, with even more support to follow as news of the foundation spread. Beneficiaries of the scholarships will be children of reprographic employees from across the industry.
Funds from the CREST Foundation will be awarded in the form of scholarships up to $15,000 for the 2008/2009 academic school year.
The CREST selection committee is composed of luminaries from across the industry, including John Deermount; Cathie Cushing Duff of Cushing Co.; Mike Carter of Lynn Imaging; Bill Thomas of Thomas Reprographics, and Miguel Garcia of Mercury LDO.
Scholarships will be based on need as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the following criteria:
Parents of applicants must have worked in the reprographics industry for a minimum of five years; Reprographic employers must be a member of the IRgA in good standing at the time the award is granted; and applicants must have a minimum academic grade point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.
Students who wish to pursue a CREST scholarship, may begin preparing by applying to FAFSA, the results of which will be a key evaluation tool used in the CREST Foundation application process. FAFSA information can be obtained at www.fafsa.ed.gov/.
HR managers and interested employees from IRgA member reprographers should contact the Foundation for more information at info@crestfoundation.org.
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