We're better print buyers

Many executives in the printing industry in the U.S. are surprised when they learn that approximately 15% of the print bought in the U.K. is done so through professional, third-party print management firms. Like InnerWorkings, these organizations often put their employees on site at their client locations, work under a contractual relationship and act as the sole or primary buying authority on their clients' behalf.

With our acquisition of etrinsic, which is among the 20 largest print management companies in the U.K., we not only have picked up a group of talented employees, an impressive customer base and a number of key, long-term supplier relationships, but we now have a unique window into a market where print management is a mature, accepted and popular method of sourcing and distributing print and print-related materials.

At no more than 1% of the total market, print management is in its infancy in the U.S. Historically, the U.S. market was comprised only of :

1) direct relationships between manufacturers and end-users of print, and

2) a group of regional brokers, mostly smaller operations acting almost as local manufacturers' reps for a handful of regional printers.

The explosion of the channel in the U.K. over the past few decades, combined with InnerWorkings recent rapid growth in the U.S., has us convinced that print management is just getting started and is here to stay.

So what is print management, and why would an end-user of print turn to a third party to procure and manage its printed materials? Because we have the data, the personnel, the scale, the infrastructure and the sharp focus to claim as our core competency the purchasing and management of print and print-related materials.

We believe retailers, financial services institutions, pharmaceutical companies and other corporations should focus their energy on what they do best and outsource the non-core function of print procurement to an experienced professional services firm like InnerWorkings. Over the years, we have developed a number of very important and mutually beneficial relationships with many of the best printers in the U.S., and we look forward to continuing to deliver projects that fit our suppliers' manufacturing capabilities and offer an opportunity to optimize their capacity utilization.

As companies in the U.S. become increasingly comfortable outsourcing key back office functions, particularly procurement functions, we at InnerWorkings believe that we have years of extraordinary growth in front of us. We are very proud of our new partnership in the U.K. And we have a lot to learn from them as we collaborate with our clients and suppliers to architect the future of print management in this country.