Digital Print Management has been a long term advocate of outsourcing.
But, surprisingly very few companies experience the real benefits of outsourcing because of failure in communication.
All too often relationships along with the contracts fail to meet the expectations of the customer.
Digital Print Management have often succeeded in winning contract work because of failure by the last incumbent.
Great for us but not a good advertisement for the industry in general.
What do I mean?
The three main reasons outsourcing fails are:-
The company wanting to outsource has no process for specifying the work to be done.
Poor project management from the provider and the company outsourcing
No metrics or KPI’s for measuring success
Unless you can specify and understand what you want as the party wanting to outsource how can you possibly expect the supplier to deliver your expectations?
You don’t need a detailed document that reads like War and Peace to make outsourcing successful but you do need to know what you expect to receive from the outsourcing process.
The worse scenario is the company decides to outsource a process and hires consultants to do the work for them assuming they know better than the organisation what is required and wasting money in the process.
Tell us what you need.
We can do anything, just tell us what you need.
I’ve sat in many meetings talking with clients understanding what they are looking and hoping for when they are considering outsourcing.
Start with a blank sheet of paper, if you could have anything you wanted what would it be?
Eh voila, there it is, all the information you need to put together a specification.
The responsibility is on the shoulders of the company looking to outsource the business process.
But, the most important and missing piece is how do YOU want your customers to feel when they experience the process you’ve outsourced.
In other words it is your customer or the end user who will have the real benefit, experience or engagement with the business process you’ve outsourced not solely the organisation.
Outsourcing fails because the agreement is not properly structured, doesn’t take advantage of the outsource providers best practices, creativity and innovation.
It does not define the scope and service levels that meet your needs and there is no communication.
When it is well planned, outsourcing relationships provide and deliver substantial benefits to an organisation and not solely cost savings.
The penultimate day of 2013 sitting at my office desk reflecting on the year that has been.
How quickly we seem to slip from one year to the next.
A time to be melancholic or a time to be reflective?
Looking back on this time last year and my final blog for 2012, I can recall putting it together and what I was thinking at the time.
Shame that the short-term memory isn’t quite as good as the long term one!
Philosophical yes.
The economy is shifting marginally and there is some optimism but we still have some way to go.
Irrespective of how good or bad the year has been it’s always a good thing to look forward with optimism.
It’s a time to plan. I don’t do new year’s resolutions I think they are waste of time I prefer setting some goals broken down into personal – family and health goals, business and company goals, family and friends and finally house goals – what I want to get sorted in the house for 2013.
That way I can attribute dates with a realistic time line and do my best to achieve them.
For my final blog, the best of 2013 I wanted to continue the theme I started at the end of 2012 with a summary of the various articles written throughout 2013.
In May, I introduced you to 3D printing, used extensively in motor manufacturing and F1 Motor Racing R & D, it has some way to go before it becomes mainstream.
It will become increasingly useful to organisations over the next 3-5 years. The difficulty for organisations will be understanding how and what applications 3D printing can be used for.
The benefits will be unprecedented. Being able to print 1 of anything or a prototype of a new product, think direct mail applications, mailings to your customers demonstrating a new product.
Remember when digital print first hit the mainstream? Then apply the same thought process to 3D printing!
Cross media marketing what is it and where does it fit in with social media and print?
The growing phenomenon of cross media marketing personalisation is having a positive impact on print. It has been mainstream for some 2-3 years but companies are uncertain how to implement it alongside a marketing plan.
Paper is becoming the first touch point of engagement with the customer before taking them on to a digital or social platform.
Marketing personalisation and social media will become increasingly important to a companies’ marketing and strategic planning process when it comes to personalised engagement with it’s targeted audience.
If you click on the link you can read why it will be important to you:
Mailing out a direct mail piece to your customers with no thought or personalisation will be ineffective in seeking customer engagement.
The cross media marketing mix has to be strategic, personalised on a level the audience can relate to and be part of your social media activity. If you hit the button below I discuss it in more detail:
I’ve extolled the virtues of multi-channel distribution – using both paper and electronic means of delivering an item to your customer.
The paperless office?
I think we still have some way to go to get there and I cannot be an advocate of a paperless office, paper has an intrinsic value in our everyday lives and you can read my opinion here:
So that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the best of the rest.
Thank you for visiting Digital Print Management’s blog and for reading and sharing the content through Linkedin, twitter, facebook and Google+, for taking the time to add your comments.
I hope that 2014 will be a successful year and may you continue to prosper financially and spiritually.
My final note for the year:
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” Winston Churchill
A good mantra to adopt for 2014, don’t you think?
Happy New Year.
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Unless you can specify and understand what you want as the party wanting to outsource how can you possibly expect the supplier to deliver your expectations?
We can do anything, just tell us what you need.
