CROconnect: Now Is the Time to Review Your Print and Digital Production Processes

You might have heard “Now is the Time!” before; perhaps it is becoming a bit cliché. The irony is how true it typically is especially at the speed at which our business moves…and that speed continues to be ushered by the evolution of technology. As Chief Relationship Officer, or CRO, at Solimar Systems, I spend a great deal of time speaking with our clients, partners, and their customers; and every time I hang up the phone or leave a meeting I realize how important it is to the people participating in those conversations to see ways to reduce challenges, improve the way they do things and simply have less stress.

So as cliché as it is, the time is now to review how you print and mail or compose and digitally deliver information to your customers. But let us take a few steps back so I may define “review.” If you think about things you do every day, like your process when you wake up in the morning and get ready to go to the office. Or the way you drive to the office. Why do you do things that way? And are you really aware of all the steps that you are taking and the things that are required or is it just muscle memory?

It might surprise you what you learn about your morning ritual. I know I did! The same thing happens when you look at the processes in your customer communications, direct mail, advertising, wide-format, packaging or digitally delivered creation, production, and delivery environment. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of technology that span the gamut of old to new. Answer these questions to explore whether your organization knows the processes that it takes to deliver information to your customers:

• Is your process or workflow from beginning to end, and every touchpoint written down?
• Are you able to walk the workflow physically from beginning to end?
• When is the last time you walked your workflow?
• How many people understand the processes?
• Is there a reason and understanding of why the processes are completed the way they are?
• Are your processes and workflow documented for each job?

Don’t be discouraged if the answers to these questions aren’t easy to come or are a no full stop. This is pretty normal given the speed at which we have to solve problems, get work completed and the amount of change most organizations have seen over the past decade. Whether growing organically or adding entities to your enterprise, change happens every day and it tends to leave the efficiency of the processes a little fuzzy. Moreover, don’t go it alone.

Our Relationship and Marketing team at Solimar is here to help you through this process by offering a path to whiteboarding your workflow, understanding areas of complication and slowdown and offering you solutions that are cost-effective, efficient to implement and as long-lasting as our over 25-year history has proven. I invite you to explore the opportunity to do more with less stress by contacting our team here at Solimar.

We look forward to working with you in the future and hope you will take a moment to step back and let us help you document your workflow process for insight, improvement, and innovation.