Worth Knowing

Nike secrets leaked by printer?

At the PODi Application Forum session on “Protecting Your Customer’s Data”, Xerox’ David Drab told the cautionary tale of a man who approached several sneaker manufacturers with an offer to sell them Nike’s product plans for the coming season. One of the Nike competitors called Nike to let them know, and Nike brought in the FBI. It turned out that the man worked for a printer who was producing Nike’s catalog.

The example brings home the possible liability that can come from having sensitive customer data in your shop. With all the personal data that can be involved in variable-data jobs, this issue is quickly becoming central for many printers. So what can you do?

Rex Brooker of Principal Financial, who was also a presenter in the Application Forum session, suggested these steps:

• Manage customer data throughout the job lifecycle (and make sure that you have both a policy about when it is to be destroyed and a way to document its destruction).
• Document your data management processes
• Train your staff on how to execute the processes
• Keep track of every instance of the data on your systems (and minimize the number of these)

At one time, printers tried to permanently retain as much customer data as possible because it might be needed for re-use. Perhaps that is still your approach. If so, it is time for a re-assessment. The world has changed, and now you need to think in terms of eliminating customer data from your systems as early as possible and as completely as possible. Otherwise, it could fall into the wrong hands, and you could be at fault.

S3 - Asking the Right Questions

In the PODi webinar on Maximizing Your Sales Opportunity by Asking the Right Questions, Kate Dunn put forth a great example of a classic sales call. Most of us who sell have experienced a similar call.

– Seller: “Do you currently use outside printers to produce your marketing materials? (situation question)
– Buyer: Yes, we use three for different types of projects.
– Seller: “Do you have any difficulties with missed dates for delivery?” (Problem Question)
– Buyer: Yes, occasionally. (Implied need)
– Seller: “We can solve that problem with our web to print technology. Our clients have 100% on time delivery.” (offering a solution)
– Buyer: What does that cost?
– Seller: “It can run from $2,500 to $5,000 in basic set up and there is a monthly charge to use the system of $250.”
– Buyer: We don’t’ have that in our budget this year.

So what happened?  It’s the case of the salesperson hearing a problem that the prospect didn’t explicitly state or even admit to.  The salesperson failed to do their job completely. The next question should have been – “What is the impact to your business due to those late deliveries?” This is called an Implication question.   

The Buyer might answer – “They are not a problem, our printers know who are critical customers are and they never miss a deliver date for them.”  Or the Buyer might say – it’s been an ongoing problem. “We just can’t seem to find a supplier that can hit the small orders that require faster turnaround.” In the first case it’s time to open a new line of questioning, searching for additional problems. In the latter case you have a hot area to pursue. The Buyer has stated their problem.

The next question should be a Need Payoff question – something like “How would a system that guarantees fast turnaround on small orders benefit your business?” When the buyer answers this question you now know the benefits of the solution you can offer.

The methodology described in the webinar is called SPIN by Neil Rackham. The full PowerPoint from the PODi webinar is available for PODi members at the Caslon site www.caslon.net in the S3 Council area,  plus a set of SPIN questions for four applications (direct order, lead generation, loyalty, and collateral management) is also available and free to PODi members.

Lean printing and the “seven wastes”

Avoiding waste is fundamental to lean manufacturing. The Toyota Production System recognizes seven types of waste (some commentators add an eighth). Although many of them are more typically found in mass-production situations, they all show up in digital printing too. And it’s not just about wasted materials. Wasted time and wasted labor are at least as important to your efficiency. Here are the basic seven “wastes”:

1. Defects (bad raw materials, equipment not maintained, color not matched, incorrect stock). The statement printer for my local bank recently experienced a very serious case of this: they managed to print (and mail) my bank’s statements on another bank’s letterhead!
2. Overproduction (production from one step that the next step is not ready to handle). Do you ever print an extra 10% beyond what the customer actually ordered? That overage might well end up in the dumpster (either at their place or yours).
3. Transportation (moving things around unnecessarily). Are paper orders for large jobs delivered right to the press? How far do finished jobs have to move in order to be packaged for shipment?
4. Waiting (loss of time). Do you ever have people waiting around for a job that requires fixing in prepress? Do you have a slow RIP that keeps your press waiting on complex jobs?
5. Inventory (warehoused items that are stored awaiting need). Digital printing should enable you to keep inventories of finished printing at a minimum. But is there an opportunity to reduce your paper inventory? What could you do with the space and capital that would be freed up?
6. Motion (looking for things, carrying things from one place to another). Do your CSRs need to scurry around the shop to figure out the status of a job for a customer who is on the phone? When specs change or an error needs to be fixed, how is that information conveyed to those who need it?
7. Overprocessing (compensating for inadequate materials or equipment, providing extra services not valued by the customer, performing manual functions). Do you strive to provide “offset quality” even when the customer doesn’t need it? Do you manually insert color pages into black-and-white jobs?

Most digital printers can find opportunities for improvement in all seven of these areas.

Of course, there are situations where the cost to fix a specific case of inefficiency is far higher than the cost of letting it continue to exist. Maybe manually inserting color pages into a mostly black-and-white job is the right process for the time being, for example. But staying aware of such situations will allow you to take the right steps to fix them when it becomes practical to do so.