Orange, the mobile and cellular communications giant owned by France Telecom, is well known to UK consumers. Exactly like any other major brand, a lot of this awareness is down to their huge advertising budget that puts their name constantly in your mind. Advertising and marketing in print format (ie on actual paper) forms a big proportion of this budget. This includes things like leaflet printing, instruction manuals, advertising billboards, magazine inserts and direct mail marketing materials. It’s pretty understandable that the likes of Orange would spend hundreds of millions on printing costs.
But a recent news story in the print indusrty press revealed that Orange also spends £7 million every year in the UK on ‘print management‘. Not on the actual costs of printing; this is spent on a company to actually manage all their printing activities. It might seem a little OTT to spend this much on a third party service merely to oversee printing. Yet that thought wouldn’t last long if you understood what print management is capable of. The basic fact comes down to this. Companies which spend money on a print management specialist actually tend to save money compared to those who try to manage their printing by themselves.
A large part of these savings comes down to reducing wastage. Millions of dollars are lost every year by mistakes such as incorrect color calibration, problems with paper stock and simple typos which were ignored before sending to print. If you consider unwieldy and complex print marketing strategies this is quite often the case and these costs are written off as ‘inevitable’. Print management as a concept came about because businesses who relied on printed media needed to find a solution to these inefficiencies.
The other side to the savings that can be made comes down to the logistics of managing sprawling print campaigns using different media and a range of different deadlines. Print jobs and schedules are planned in scientific detail to reduce the cost associated with electricity use, overheads and purchase of unneccesary equipment. A classic example is when poorly managed campaigns lead to a maxing out of printers and equimpent during busy periods – if you plan ahead and spread out the jobs you can reduce significant overheads. Do the math and the outcome of this is that your printing costs come down. Ultimately this means you can print more and generate more return out of your print investment.
The good news is that print management isn’t exclusive to huge multinational corporations like Orange. In the past decade the gains in digital printing technology have meant smaller scale print management solutions are possible for small to medium enterprises, meaning that the rest of us can enjoy the same kinds of cost savings the ‘big guys’ have been enjoying for years. Is your company making use of this opportunity?
