The major printing exhibition DRUPA takes place in Dusseldorf at the end of May. Over one hundred thousand printers will be attending. Most with their tongues hanging out in awe at the latest advances in technology.

In the related areas covered by this magazine, there may not always be machinery investment but there will certainly be talk of investing in ordering systems, the Internet, e-commerce, workflow management and materials handling systems. Many firms within the general printing industry still make their investment decisions based first on how they can make production more and more efficient. Secondly, based on the face to face sales ability of the firm's directors and sales people to fill the capacity.

There is no doubt that producing well and on time are vital but doesn't every supplier now seem to be able to produce quality work on time every time? So what we are left with to keep customers coming back for more?

Many despondently say, not much more than lowering prices and tying customers with contracts. Some years ago I was involved in a survey with the British Association of Printers and Copy Shops (now the Association of Printers and Communications). We found that the over-whelming reason for customers not changing printers was that they were afraid that the printer they changed to would be worse than the printer they had, even though they were very critical of the printers that they were regularly using!

How times have changed. The Internet will inevitably, lead to more and more great choices for the customer, who really will rule.

For those whose future is extricably linked to getting closer and closer to their customers, even to the extent of anticipating what their customers don't even yet know they want, there is still the potential to profit. An integrated market lead approach will provide the disciplines and scope to modify their offering and enable them to be seen as being quite different to their competitors.

The way the Internet companies are being valued tells us a great deal about the real worth of a customer. The whole theory of lifetime values of customers is not that new. Successful companies have been investing heavily in customer gaining programmes not breaking even on these for months ahead. Investing in innovation, making customers feel part of the suppliers business seems to be the key in unleashing huge amounts of customer loyalty and satisfaction. Making life easy for the customer, rather than supplying a piece of print at a cheaper price, is often easier than raw selling.

Investing in innovation though marketing also requires us to be very wide ranging in what we term our 'assets'. However, soft 'assets' include trading names, location, developed systems, distribution arrangements, knowledge of market areas, supplier relationships, any literature and advertisements run but of greatest importance our staff and customers. Every person in our organisations may have skills, knowledge, aptitudes and interests that if sufficiently nurtured could do wonders for our business. Good customers have other departments that we are not yet servicing. They have their own customers who we could easily get to. They will respond well to seeking their advice.

'Necessity is the Mother of Invention' is an old adage. The profound changes that are taking place around us in business and in attitudes are leading to 'necessities' that can be 'invented'. Find those necessities and you might re-invent your business.

Three years ago Grasmere Press took a long hard look at itself and decided to invent its own new model for success establishing Grasmere Digital Imaging Ltd in Leeds. For the last 18 months G.D.I has been selling and controlling print over the Internet. At the IPIA conference I hope to lead a session on this subject and would be very interested to hear from from any of you that had experience, however small, of using the Internet to commercial advantage.

by Ivor Jacobs (Grasmere Digital Imaging Ltd.)

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