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Ed. Note: Each month the "Printers in Transition" series will spotlight a progressive, forward-thinking company that has recently made the successful transition from a traditional print shop to a provider of full-service graphic communications solutions, or is successfully driving its graphic communications business with new digital technologies, new services, personalization and variable-data printing, digital asset management, and so on. These profiles will provide nationwide examples of printing and graphic communications firms that are successfully de-commoditizing print and growing their business.
In November 2005, the Marketing Informatics (MI) management team made a BAM-a big audacious move. The Indianapolis-based firm did not plan to do it; it had not even been discussing it.
A long-established printer in MI's area enjoyed almost two decades of solid profitability and a great reputation. Like most family companies, that growth was fueled by one big customer, several middling customers, and a host of small ones. However, like many other family companies, when the one big customer faltered, the business took a hit.
About the time the company began to recover from the crippling loss, another stunner was delivered-notice came from the landlord that the firm would have to vacate its space in 30 days to make way for the construction manager that was building the new stadium for the Indianapolis Colts. As a result, RPS Printing Inc. management visited MI in an attempt to lease 30,000 sq. ft. open in its building.
MI said that it was not interested in leasing the space, but that it would be interested in buying the company. Forty-five days after the landlord's notice, RPS Printing was bought, moved, and was up-and-running as a division of Marketing Informatics.
The Reasoning Behind The Purchase
Marketing Informatics is a full-spectrum direct marketing company. It had, in fact, discussed starting a printing division for a long time, but there were significant barriers to entry, including:
Capital
Not only would MI have had to buy presses, but also prepress equipment, bindery machinery, a computer network, and much more. The firm had grown at a blistering rate for four years-100 percent and more a year-and it needed the capital for continued growth, not expenditures.
The Fundamentals
Ink-on-paper is a different discipline than paper-in-mailstream. MI did not have the expertise to be printers, and it would have been very difficult to assemble, in one stroke, the team of printing professionals it would need.
