The Wider View: Does Your Business Need New Capabilities?

In last month’s column, I discussed the many choices wide-format producers have regarding ink sets and related features in wide-format printing devices. In the last few years, many OEM trade show booths have featured truly impressive printed samples showing the extent of what today’s printers can do — cool prints and applications that should have you asking one key question: “Do I need that?”

My answer: “Maybe.” The reason for this comes down to integration of those new capabilities into your existing business, and whether your results can bring profitability.

Before signing on the dotted line for a new system with amazing features, wide-format producers should ask, for the sake of their businesses, how will these features be used? Is there a need among current customers that justifies their presence? Will these new features help the business grow (in both capability and product offerings) in an agreed-upon, pre-considered direction that will help the company access new markets, build value in the eyes of customers, and serve as a key to business growth?

It’s a lot of questions. But, given that this column is here to make you think, I’m going all out. And the questions above are for you to answer, not your equipment manufacturer or your supplier. Purchasing a machine solely because you were dazzled by its capabilities, without placing it within the priorities of the business, is what I would call “business by hunch.” Another name for that is gambling.

For example, I think bulldozers are pretty cool. Maybe you agree. But would you agree with me investing in one when I have no plans to offer bulldozing services? Probably not. Same goes for cool, yet potentially unneeded, capabilities.

Another factor to consider is how your company would effectively sell these new services. Assuming you are able to successfully recreate all the amazing effects you witness in a trade show booth, is your sales team conversant enough about the new technologies to sell them as higher-value print? Do they understand the implications related to pricing this new work or, in the case of many white-ink-equipped systems, compensate for slower production speeds by quoting at a higher price point? Do the goals and priorities of the sales team match the goals of the company?

Similarly, is your company prepared to market its new capabilities to current and potential customers — to shout from the rooftops that it is now better, different, more capable, and a better choice than it was before the new machine arrived?

Word to the wise: Your answers to these many questions should not be “maybe” (that’s for me to say). And, if that is your answer today, then take some additional time to learn, explore, and consider before making that significant equipment purchase.

This column is in no way designed to steer you away from equipment that could transform, even supercharge, your business. Numerous companies in the wide-format space are successfully using new capabilities to differentiate and grow. To do so, they either located or built the need for their use, and they (most of them, at least) went into it with a plan, not with a simple hunch.