The Outside View
 By Greg Cholmondeley
Segment Marketing Manager,
Ricoh Americas Corporation
There are any number of ways to think about your business and how to improve what you do. But the thinking of most in-house print shop managers tends to be shaped by the demanding rush of the day-to-day—keeping print queues full and customers happy while ensuring the work gets out, and the books balanced. While important, when viewed from the desk of most print executives, these are each seen with a subjective lens that often fails to provide a perspective that is at once wider, yet is also more tightly focused on the specific issues that can help drive the business forward.
This viewpoint requires an objectivity that sees the big picture of your operation and how it supports your parent corporation or institution while paying close attention to such key issues as productivity, growing volume and recognizing opportunities that can expand the scope of a business or take it to a new level of success. So that begs the questions: Are you objective about your business? For that matter, do you even think of your operation as a business?
Step Away from the Day-to-Day for a Moment
Objectivity is primarily a matter of perspective, and one of the best ways of altering one's viewpoint is to step back and look at your operation as an outsider. That is, really look at your operation. Study it as you would one you were considering buying, or perhaps as if it were a major competitor. Where are the strengths and weaknesses? What are the opportunities and threats? What seems to work well? Where are things not working as they should?
When you view your operation this way you can develop a fresh understanding without the explanations and excuses you may use to rationalize the way your existing operations have evolved. This gives you a new look at your strategy, along with insights into staffing, training, operational capabilities, flexibility, responsiveness to market conditions, and more. It gives you an initial "take" on how you look to an outsider who understands what makes a printing operation successful.
Now Dig Deeper
Once you have this broader perspective, it's time to dig deeper and examine your operation with respect to productivity, the ability to grow efficiently (add volume) and how well prepared you are to take advantage of new opportunities.
We'll look at each of these in more detail in coming issues, but for now consider these approaches to understanding your business.
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Begin with productivity and again view yourself as you would if you were looking to acquire a business. Are you just another print shop or are you a step ahead—or behind? |
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Look at volume from your customers' standpoint—who are your competitors? Why might some types of jobs be going to them? It might be the type of job, length of print runs, lack of capabilities, or several other reasons. Think about the answers and what they tell you about what you could do to grow volume. |
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Finally there is opportunity. What do all your people, equipment, policies and procedures say about the way you run things – the services you provide – your value to the organization? This can be especially hard to think about, but it's not unusual for the greatest barrier to new opportunity to be an existing infrastructure that is resistant to new ideas or has self-imposed barriers to growth its owners or managers may not realize. |
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With each of these you have to step out of your office and look at things with a different point of view. Be critical! No excuses! Ask why things work the way they do! You'll come away with a new way of seeing that combines the big picture with all the details—and can help you move your operation forward to newfound success. |
