Finishing is what makes you money. A press operator can produce a beautifully printed sheet of paper, but it doesn’t become sellable until it experiences some form of cutting, folding or binding to produce what the customer ordered – and until that is done it cannot be invoiced.
We’ve look at the Keypoint Intelligence study; "Market Trends in Print Finishing" to answer, will bringing finishing in-house be the key to maintaining and growing revenue?
Many print providers reported that finishing has helped them to win deals. The post Covid-19 environment is only making this even more important.
Only 11% of respondents reported that they had never lost a deal due to the need to fulfil a certain finishing requirement.
Among those respondents who lost deals because of finishing requirements, the most common reasons included:
- Not having the required finishing capabilities 54%
- Price 40%
- Turnaround time 32%
These three factors all impact each other; if you don’t have the right capabilities and have to outsource the finishing, the price and turnaround time will increase, further increasing the probability you will lose the deal.
Finishing as a major differentiator
We’re currently observing that whilst short print runs are getting even shorter, they’re also becoming more and more demanding, both in terms of quality and delivery times
source: Market Trends in Print Finishing, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends 2020
Quick turnaround (63%) quality of the finished product (55%) and variety of finishing capabilities (43%) were ranked as the biggest differentiators of finishing.
In a world where most businesses are in survival mode, knowing where to invest in your finishing line is critical.
Products such as the Duplo DuSense Sensory Coater and DuSense DigiFoil tackle ultra-short production runs, whilst at the lowest cost of entry for adding a huge opportunity for creativity to your offering. PSPs adopting these systems have seen an increase in attracting in customer demand new clients.
As many PSPs and inplants have added digital print to their offset print capabilities, they seek flexible finishing equipment that can tackle both. According to Keypoint Intelligence’s research, 80% of respondents that had both digital and offset press technologies generally preferred to use the same finishing equipment for both.
Automating complex manual processes to produce high quality results has always been at the heart of our products’ R&D approach. Such drive is the reason why we moved to PC controllers over a decade ago, why we invented multifinishing systems and remain a global leader today with our DC range, or why our DuSense Sensory Coater is in such high demand. The same approach underlines our move into offering on demand digital packaging systems, such as the PFi Blade. Fundamentally, we aim to help printers create beautiful finished products that help them add value to their business and reduce waste in their operations. And in today’s environment, finishing can make all the difference.
If you would like to discuss further how the value and benefits that finishing can deliver to your organisation, please get in touch.
Sources: Market Trends in Print Finishing, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends 2020, Don’t Forget to Finish It! – Printing News https://www.printingnews.com/print-finishing-mailing/article/21124215/dont-forget-to-finish-it
