Have you ever turned down a job or not secured all the business you can from clients because you
can’t execute particular work? Maybe it’s time to consider finding partners who can fill those production gaps.
Outsourcing is a strategy that ebbs and flows according to all sorts of market conditions. But in today’s hyper competitive environment, tight labor market, and less than ideal borrowing climate, it’s something to consider. The key is to approach outsourcing opportunities strategically, so they add value and decrease costs.
Scenarios for Outsourcing
The obvious reason for outsourcing is to produce projects you can’t do in house. This might include adding embellishments with specialized devices, producing large inkjet posters on specialty substrates, executing long or short runs that don’t align well with your equipment capacity, or accessing offset production if you run a purely digital shop.
Outsourcing is an option if you’re jammed and facing a tight delivery deadline. And, since many campaigns these days are multi-channel, a digital marketing firm can execute the non-print elements.
Outsourcing is also a good way to test the waters if you’re planning to expand your revenue streams. If you’re an offset printer and want to foray into inkjet specialty work, outsourcing can be a good learning opportunity as your staff explores the intricacies of selling and producing new products.
Advantages of Partnering
The benefits are clear: access to specialized equipment when you need it without having to invest; skirting the labor market challenges because you’re not bringing on new employees; keeping overhead in check; avoiding managing the supply chain of securing necessary inks or substrates; smoothing out the ups and downs of production; and having a backup to bottlenecks.
There are competitive advantages too. You deliver added value to clients and provide the one-stop-shopping experience many clients welcome. If you pay wholesale for the outsourced services, passing some savings on to clients as a goodwill gesture can go a long way.
Also, don’t forget that outsourcing can be a two-way street. You can reciprocate services and give your partners access to what they lack. If you specialize in long runs, maybe the digital shop you work with can outsource to you.
Building Outsourcing Relationships
Of course, setting up these partnerships takes time. You will need to find an associate that meshes with your corporate culture and staff, so proper due diligence is a must.
Get to know the company well, assess its financial stability, discuss how it handles production snags, determine how well it communicates and how responsive it is. Evaluate a highly specialized shop’s ability to stay at the leading edge of technology. Can it turn out jobs quickly when needed? How well do their accounting practices and timelines integrate with your operations? In other words, can you count on your partner if things go off the rails, as they sometimes do? Until you have a good comfort level, start slow and build out the relationship.
Be prepared to set aside staff resources to coordinate with new suppliers, especially if you have several of them. Perhaps assign one staff member to handle all the outgoing work.
Finally, if you structure a significant portion of your business around outsourcing to several suppliers, look at automation software to streamline the process. These modules can make it easier to keep track of your vendors, transfer files, and even manage parameters to assign jobs to the best associate in seconds.
Sometimes, if space, equipment, staff, and investment ability allow, it can make sense to set up a one-stop shop. But with increasingly varying printing work, meeting all client needs in house can be challenging and expensive. Finding the right outsourcing vendors can be a win-win.