Efficiency Isn’t the Only Benefit to Supply Chain Management
There’s no questioning the incredible efficiency that supply chain management adds to your organization. If you’re a regular reader, you know I regularly point out the benefits of a one-source approach that ensures consistent quality and cost-efficiency every time for your printing and promotional product needs.
Certainly value and savings are the most obvious results when you take advantage of Superior’s experience and diverse stable of proven suppliers. Our considerable expertise allows us to match your project with the printer or promotional product supplier best able to ensure your satisfaction with both product quality and timely delivery. But,in the long run, there are also other benefits that are extremely important for your business. One of them is creativity.
What Does a Supply Chain Have to Do With Creativity?
Plenty, if you’re, well, creative enough to recognize the opportunities! In the old, traditional printing model, every project is a big deal, requiring a great deal of manpower, wrangling details, collecting estimates, supervising production, and distributing the finished product to where it needs to go. Under that model, there is little enthusiasm for such a ponderous task, and brochures or materials tend to grow tired and outdated long before the organization works up the energy to undergo the task again.
That’s not good for business. At best, those materials may not be presenting your company in the most attractive light. At worst, they might be inaccurately portraying your current skills and experience, and failing to address emerging issues and concerns relevant to potential customers today. This can cause you to lose opportunities to competitors who bring brighter, more creative and more contemporary materials to the discussion.
Our supply chain management technologies help you change this situation almost immediately, in several ways:
- The process of getting a brochure or other literature printed is no longer an ordeal. With Superior doing most of the detail work, you can spend your time creatively addressing the wants and needs of your prospects, and developing new materials whenever the situation dictates. This allows your marketing to be agile and effective because it is more flexible and responsive.
- Companies also procrastinate due to inventory. “We’ve got a bunch of old ones on the shelf we want to use up first.” The marketer in me hates hearing that. Saving a few dollars by using old materials is likely to cost your business a thousand times more when the dated information or tired graphics in those old pieces turn away new business. A good supply chain management system minimizes that inventory problem. Our technologies, for example, allow you to print smaller quantities as needed, since the re-ordering process is simple and user-friendly. This means less waste, and more incentive to keep materials fresh, updated, and creatively appealing
- Our print-on-demand technologies also free up your marketing people to use their creativity in a tactical way. Brochures, for example, can be prepared in such a way as to permit customization; quantities targeted to one prospect group can carry text and images compelling to that target group, while messaging can be tailored differently for other audiences.
- It is well known that frequent contact with customers is a key to ensuring loyalty and repeat business. I’m sure you’ve heard many experts preaching “CRM” – customer relationship management, and I agree totally. Once you get a feel for how smoothly the creation of print and promotional products can be with Superior, you might put your creativity to work with other unique ideas. How about a monthly postcard mailer with a little cartoon on it, just to say “hello” or “thanks for the business.” How about a quarterly newsletter that your targets, or other audiences you care to influence, can hold in their hands….and keep on their desks…and come back to later. There’s plenty of research to support the fact that a printed piece is just more convincing and comforting to readers.
With a well-managed and dependable supply chain, you can just do more. When printing is less of a hassle, you’re more likely to find more and better ways to use printed pieces to the advantage of your business. I certainly enjoy brainstorming on these creative ideas, so don’t hesitate to give me a call or reach out to our Superior Sales Reps HERE.
