Print Management

Getting it right in the Smart Sourcing sector. The print and document management outsourcing market remains a sector where the ingredients – cultures, customer service, expertise, technology – have to be mixed correctly to find success, reflects editor Andy Knaggs.

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A business magazine such as this is bound to seek to distil the essence of effective print and document management outsourcing, and will invariably be challenged by the task. The market is so huge, so diverse, both on the supplier side and with the requirements of the clients they serve, that no single answer can surely encapsulate all.

Instead, the temptation is to look for themes and trends, look for common ground where a common problem meets with broadly similar answers. In putting this Smart Sourcing publication together this year, it seems that the print and document management market is serviced by a wider variety of suppliers than ever before. Occasionally one hears from a print buyer that print management is unpopular – savings have not accrued as promised, resources have been diverted to the newest big contract. In acknowledging that this happens, it also seems true that overall things seem to be in rude health.

The individual experience is of course just that: individual. It is never the intention to ignore such factors - there is success and failure in every walk of life – but when smart sourcing goes right, there are some happy customers, and it is to be hoped that the reasons why this is so can be found within these pages. The reasons it can go awry are broadly the same as the reasons for success: a mix of cultures, customer service, true print expertise that delivers value over and above the historical hammering down of printers’ margins, efficient processes driven through technology. Get these things right and all is rosy in the print management garden; get them wrong and the delicate petals of early wins soon wither away.

All of this happens against a backdrop of UK print and document managers turning European and US ambitions into real business, and many of those same suppliers are also jostling for an evolving role within the corporate procurement and marketing machines – business process outsourcing for some, brand communications agencies for others.

Whatever degree of print or document smart sourcing you are looking for, we hope answers may be found within this unique mix of supplier information and informed editorial.