The Innovation Imperative
This article previously ran in the January 2020 issue of PS Magazine.
Innovation. It’s the business buzzword you love to hate but can’t afford to ignore.
The concept of innovating can be tricky to articulate, let alone put into action. Meaningful change doesn’t come simply from using buzzwords, adopting new technology or chasing silver bullets.
For print industry executives, innovation became a rallying cry in recent years as manufacturers and distributors developed new strategies and product and service offerings to meet customers’ rapidly changing needs. It became a movement in the early to mid-2000s, when many businesses survived a brutal recession and technology-driven disruption only if they successfully rode the innovation wave.
Today, PSDA members are encountering a level of change that demands innovation — from the products and services they offer to their technology, processes, business models and strategies. Understandably, some organizations find it difficult to sustain themselves in these circumstances. But many are growing, if not thriving, by purposefully driving transformational change, supported by an association that emphasizes the need for industrywide innovation.
Ask 20 business gurus to define “innovation,” and you’ll inevitably get 20 different responses.
Kevin McFarthing, a long-respected expert on the topic, has called innovation “the introduction of new products and services that add value to the organization.” Meanwhile, Drew Boyd, co-author of “Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results,” defines innovation as “anything that is new, useful and surprising.”
Then there’s Stefan Lindegaard, a speaker and adviser on corporate transformation, who said in a 2016 interview that, “I try not to define ‘innovation,’ as we should tone down our use of the word and term.”
Given that “word” and “term” mean the same thing, it’s difficult to take seriously Lindegaard’s definition — or lack thereof.
So, let’s try this: Innovation involves developing and executing ideas that deliver solutions to pressing issues and clear value to companies and their customers.
Whatever its definition, innovation is imperative for PSDA members, many of which are embracing the challenges it brings to grow their businesses. This story spotlights several PSDA member companies that are innovating in a variety of ways and reaping the benefits of their evolving work in the print and marketing services industry.
Product-Focused Innovation
Established in 1974, Repacorp (repacorp.com) started as a firm representing printing corporations, hence the name “Rep-A-Corp.” Entering its 46th year of operations, the Ohio-based company is one of the United States’ largest stock and custom label manufacturers. But it’s also increasingly recognized for its innovative packaging solutions.
Seeing new opportunities to serve the food and beverage and natural/organic product markets, among others, Repacorp added shrink sleeves and flexible packaging capabilities to its product portfolio.
Specializing in short to medium runs, Repacorp produces stand up, flat bottom and pillow pouches, bags, bar wraps, sachets and more. The company touts its abilities to offer matte, gloss, clear and metalized materials, as well as multilayered films and high-barrier films for any application and shelf life.
Repacorp’s ability to invest in the latest technology keeps the company on the cutting edge in a rapidly changing industry.
“We’re not only investing in equipment but in software, too,” Larson says. “With personalization and hyper-personalization capabilities, labels and packaging become marketing campaigns.”
At Itasca, Illinois-based Diversified Labeling Solutions (teamdls.com), product development also is a mainstay of its growth, success and innovation.
Having produced flexographic UL compliant labels for several years, the company recently promoted its ability to create digital UL labels. UL-compliant labels use materials and have designs that have been approved by Underwriters Laboratories, an independent, nonprofit organization that develops electrical safety testing standards and regularly tests products for compliance.
The pitch to distributors: Increase your sales and make more money with this highly profitable and innovative product line, for which DLSdigital™ is officially certified.
Innovation Through Customer Experience
Portland, Maine-based MPX (mpxonline.com) promotes its delivery of innovative solutions that emphasize the importance of service and the customer experience. The company is so focused on this facet of its business that its social media posts often close with the hashtag #CustomerExperience.
On its website, MPX elucidates the concept of “Evolving the Customer Touchpoint Experience.” It says, “Your relationships with your customers matter more than ever. What has changed is how and when your customers are available to deepen these relationships. They visit and call less often, though they have higher expectations when they do. Many embrace self-serve access. They receive amazing service [at all] hours from Amazon and others. They now expect the same from you.”
MPX concludes by emphasizing its business philosophy: “Our mission is to provide you with the tools and know-how to deliver a world-class customer experience.”
There’s ample evidence that MPX’s approach is effective, including the fact that it won two 2018 PEAK Awards from PSDA for creating a secure electronic billing solution for one client and helping another achieve huge postal cost savings. MPX CEO Ryan Jackson says those endeavors won not only awards but also customer appreciation.
“Now more than ever before, our clients that buy our core services of statement processing and direct mail are immensely appreciative of our other services,” Jackson says. “These include traditional distributor items such as print, kitting and fulfillment, promo, as well as our newer complimentary services, such as payment processing, inbound mail and scanning. Adding value to our clients by solving many issues under one roof has never been more alive at MPX than it is today.”
Adding value is part of the MPX customer experience, which transcends simply selling services. In a recent blog post, Vice President for Business Development Jacob Roberson writes, “At MPX, we do not believe in simply selling great products and services. Our approach is to work collaboratively with customers to achieve mutual goals.”
He adds, “We want to be integral to your success and have the proven ability to drive real results. In today’s world, those results can only be realized by engaging and servicing a demanding consumer who expects you to provide intuitive online tools and digital communication.”
Innovation Through Specialization
Like the city it calls home, Vanguard (hellovanguard.com), a marketing solutions company, is an organization that never sleeps. Led by brothers Bob and Don O’Connell for the past 25 years, the company has more than tripled its annual revenue.
The company’s success is multifaceted, but innovation through specialization is increasingly integral to it. In an interview with PS Magazine in April 2013, Bob O’Connell said, “Technologies and platforms continue to come and go, but it’s how we leverage them for our clients that creates and adds value.”
Today, Vanguard is delivering in this area by segmenting its core areas of business to ensure innovations are more targeted and effective.
We were generalists until we came to know who we really were as an organization,” O’Connell says. “We are much more focused today.”
Both VGD (truevgd.com) and Vanguard Promo (vanguardpromo.com) emerged and grew from within Vanguard to more accurately meet clients’ ever-changing, specialized business needs.
Vanguard says VGD creates digital experiences that are transformative for clients and aspire to make “a real difference in people’s lives” and engender “a culture of possibility where true impact in mobile, web and social is the only rule.”
Vanguard Promo has more than 1 million expertly curated products to create what the company calls “engaging brand immersions for your organization — from trade shows to employee recognition.” Custom packaging, kitting, fulfillment and distribution services constitute a complete, end-to-end solution.
Ultimately, many of O’Connell’s assertions in 2013 ring just as true — if not more so — in 2020.
“Moving from traditional execution up to the strategic space has been a transformative shift in what defines us,” O’Connell said seven years ago. “And while the technologies we use are important, it’s the ideas we have that distinguish us from our competition.”
Values-Driven Innovation
Headquartered in Appleton, Wisconsin, Appvion (appvion.com) has been in the business of coating substrates for more than a century, and it is North America’s leading manufacturer of carbonless, security and thermal papers.
However, when it comes to innovation, Appvion’s approach is less about products, services and strategy (though it’s big on those, too) and more about “applied innovation” (hence the company’s name) and values that have been part of the company’s DNA since its inception.
In its outreach to business partners and customers, Appvion spotlights what it calls its “passion for people, paper, innovation and possibilities.” It also says, “We do more than just produce high-quality paper and film. We inspire creativity, innovation and success.”
Appvion notes its core value is “environmental management,” with a staunch commitment to implementing companywide environmental and chemical management systems to be truly innovative and achieve environmental compliance and sustainability.
Appvion introduced the first carbonless paper in 1954, lowering paper production’s environmental impact. It was one of the first companies to remove bisphenol A (BPA) from its thermal products to enhance their product safety and sustainability attributes, and it uses only water-based solvents.
At Appvion, innovation is a value-driven attribute and companywide accomplishment in which it takes immense pride.
“Here at Appvion, we believe the environment and the economy are not mutually exclusive,” says George Wurtz, the company’s chairman and CEO. “Sustaining our environment is key to our future success as a company. That is why we’ve committed our enterprise to developing innovative, environmentally responsible solutions” to meet customers’ needs.
Innovation Through Collaboration
Are your ideas for meaningful change ready for liftoff or still sitting on the launch pad? For many print and marketing service providers, collaboration is vital to bringing big ideas to fruition.
Enter PSDA member Launchpad, which has a program called Liftoff (liftoff.shop) that empowers distributors, resellers, marketing firms and development teams to provide competitive, feature-rich e-commerce and web-to-print solutions.
Under the words “TOGETHER WE GROW” on its website, Liftoff shares numbers that tell a compelling story about the power of partnership:
- 43,525 Liftoff customers
- 3,806 sites on Liftoff
- 218,000 transactions this month
- 1,134,199 products on Liftoff
On his LinkedIn page, Andrew Alford, president of Launchpad, calls himself a “Cloud Computing Aficionado” and cites “Building Incredible E-commerce Experiences” as a core professional activity. In a LinkedIn post published shortly after PSDA’s 2019 P2P Technology + Innovation Summit, Alford made clear that collaboration drives innovation, and that the association provides a forum within which to make that happen.
“PSDA is a phenomenal association for distributors and resellers of print, promo and apparel products,” he said. “The partnerships formed at these events are invaluable. It’s not always about selling; it’s about learning, growing, networking and finding a better way. Launchpad has been a PSDA member since 2012, and it contributes its early growth to the association and partnerships formed.”
Longtime PSDA member Navitor (navitor.com) is also keenly focused on collaboration, cultivating what it calls “progressive partnerships.” Navitor delivers simplified access to its many innovative programs, services and technologies exclusively to its distributor and reseller community. As progressive partners, they grow their businesses together, innovating to provide top-tier solutions in ways they often can’t achieve alone.
While customers always seek new products and services to solve challenges, Navitor’s approach to doing business with its reseller community is the foundational innovation that drives success.
Beth Marston, vice president of sales at Navitor, says she and her colleagues collaborate with distributors to serve end users optimally in a variety of markets, from health care and education to automotive, property management and small-business services.
Navitor’s customizable tools facilitate collaborative innovation and allow distributors to showcase a wide variety of products in a cohesive brand story that is relevant to specific markets and industries. Navitor’s “Vertical Market Sales Kits” are among its selling tools that facilitate this collaborative innovation. They showcase a wide variety of products that suit each market best, such as lush print stocks for the legal market."
We offer effective tools distributors need to give their customers an up-close-and-personal look at what print can do for them,” Marston says. “Our Vertical Market Sales Kits are available exclusively to Navitor resellers, alongside superb customer service and decades of experience we put to work for them.”
Marston, a 25-year industry veteran, emphasizes the simplified access to the breadth of available programs and services. Candid, clear discussions with partners and their customers — from traditional companies to startups — ultimately lead to an integrated relationship and several “a-ha moments.”
“Transparency is the foundation for collaborative innovation, so we have to ask the right questions to get authentic answers,” she says. “Where can we make progress together? What can we accomplish that is innovative and meets customers’ needs? Through our commitment to our partners, we identify many opportunities in current and evolving markets.”
People-Focused Innovation
People represent any organization’s most vital and precious resource. So, when it comes to corporate innovation, focusing on people makes sense. You can’t develop or provide products or services without them.
Employers who care about their employees look after them “as whole people, not just task performers,” says Susan Cain, author of the bestselling book “Quiet” and CEO of Quiet Revolution. “I'm increasingly seeing employers … facilitating the entire life of an employee … as opposed to just the part that shows up to make wages.”
Founded in 1981, Minnesota-based American Solutions for Business is a premier distributor of print, promotional products, office supplies, e-commerce and marketing solutions. It’s a widely respected product and service innovator in the industry, but a quick look at its blog (americanbusblog.com) reveals another primary driver of innovation: people.
The employee-owned company with sales associates and support staff throughout North America articulates a clear goal: to empower and support qualified sales professionals who provide customers with the highest degree of service and satisfaction. The company says on its website, “We believe in relationships — people buy from people, and American is committed to the balanced blend of technology, products and people.”
Many companies’ blogs understandably feature posts promoting their products and services. However, the American Solutions for Business blog stands out by frequently eschewing that approach, instead covering what its people do and think, from charitable and volunteer work to why they love working for the company. Regarding the latter, one salesperson says he feels employee ownership gives him “independence and purpose.”
One recent blog post spotlighted a group of employees and their families who volunteered for an afternoon of cleanup for Adopt a Highway.
“We have participated in Adopt a Highway for many years,” said Justin Zavadil, president of American Solutions for Business and one of that day’s volunteers. “We take pride in our community and share a responsibility to keep it clean and safe.”
A former PSDA staff member, John Delavan is a Pennsylvania-based freelance writer.