In-plant Show in Rochester

After a number of in-plant shows were cancelled this year, I was happy to get the chance to attend and present at the IPMA (In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association) show a few weeks ago. The show was a success with more than 100 in-plant managers meeting in the beautiful Woodcliff Hotel in Rochester, NY. The weather was perfect for the class trips to the nearby facilities of both Xerox and Kodak. All told it was a great show filled with four days of business dialogs and fun.

Many speakers talked about how in-plants must be more proactive and create more value through new business opportunities. Barb Pellow, of InfoTrends, encouraged in-plants to become "e-enabled," starting with Web-to-print, because automation will reduce the number of times in-plant staff has to touch a job, thus increasing the revenue of each job.

I was glad to finally meet and talk with Greg Cholmondeley, In-Plant Segment Marketing Manager, for Ricoh. I already know of the folks who have similar positions with Xerox and Kodak. In Greg’s presentation he urged managers to create a customer advisory panel (and include non customers), conduct short, simple and frequent customer satisfaction surveys and develop a marketing plan.

Although Jerry Sampson was introduced as working for Xerox he actually works for xpedx. When this was pointed out to the moderator, he said he looked quickly and saw the x’s at the beginning and end of the word and assumed it was Xerox. Sampson’s presentation advised in-plants to find out from accounting which jobs are being sent outside and who is buying this work. These are opportunities for the in-plant.

John Foley Jr., from interlinkONE gave a great introduction to cross media marketing entitled, “The Anatomy of a Successful Marketing Campaign.”

My 45 minute presentation talked about 3 things: how can in-plants survive the recession; how in-plants can prepare for an independent audit; and how in-plants can listen to customers, and build the workflow to create products with more value. I also discussed some intangible benefits such as: their role as the brand police; ensuring copyright clearance; and how their print buying experience can save the organization 7 percent or more.

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