Pressing On: The ‘Big Chief’ Speaks

RR Donnelley president and CEO Tom Quinlan is like the North American printing industry’s version of once-venerable stock brokerage E.F. Hutton, made famous by a TV ad campaign in the late 1970s and early 1980s: When Quinlan talks, people listen. And what Quinlan has to say is this: “The printing industry is back.”

Quinlan joined EFI CEO Guy Gecht for a “Fireside Chat” at the EFI Connect user group conference on January 21 and was quick to point out that, the day before, retailer JCPenney announced plans to resurrect its printed catalog. He also noted that Donnelley is optimistic about the book market. “Physical books have started to come back,” Quinlan stated, “based on [our] 2014 numbers,” especially one-color printed books.

The Twittersphere nearly exploded when Quinlan took the Las Vegas stage. (Read our tweets @Quick Printing, @Printing News, and @MyPRINTResource, #EFIconnect.) More than 1,000 executives and managers, from big printing plants to small firms and every sized shop in between, all sat up and took notice. As they well should.

Ranked at #264 on the annual Fortune 500 list with nearly $12 billion in sales in 2014, RR Donnelley still is our industry’s “Big Indian,” and Quinlan is its chief, which makes him the “Big Chief.” Such high-profile appearances are rare, particularly for Donnelley, which has maintained a self-imposed code of silence at least since 1985, when I began a nine-year stint with the Big Indian. Back then, “RRD” was fond of its well-known Indianhead logo (see inset) with oak-leaf filigree. Ten years after leaving, when working as an editor at Graphic Arts Monthly, I learned the hard way that getting anyone at Donnelley to comment on anything was akin to breaking through the Iron Curtain in 1950s Russia.

Breath of fresh air

Quite to the contrary, Quinlan was open and affable – quite refreshing, actually. He seemed relaxed and humble, discussing his blue-collar New York upbringing, a love of basketball, and his career start at the now defunct securities firm Kidder, Peabody. He talked about his mentors, including Cenveo chairman Bob Burton, the gruff former Murray State football captain who hired Quinlan in a finance role during their World Color days. He waxed philosophical about social-media disruption, big-data analysis, printing textiles and labels with sensors, and even 3D print as well as possible acquisition targets.

When you are the biggest and the richest company in your industry, it seems like everyone has an opinion. Many observers admire how the 150-year-old company, which employs some 70,000 people, has evolved over generations and continued to reinvent itself while many of its once formidable competitors have fallen. Critics, green with envy, perhaps, practically despise the mega printer, accusing its contract negotiators of being arrogant in throwing around its considerable weight.

Quinlan stressed, time and again, how Donnelley has evolved into a customer-centric organization. “The key to longevity is taking care of the customer,” he urged, especially in the “omnichannel” world in which we now live. “We take pride [in] … helping our customers create brand loyalty.” A few minutes later, he uttered this Benny Landa-esque takeaway: “Print is a doorway to digital, and digital is a doorway to print.”

A few seats over from me in the front row sat print industry guru Frank Romano, who noted that the big chief made 127customer references in his 60-minute chat session. (Yes, Romano counted them!) For those of you keeping score, that’s a “customer” about every 30 seconds, which made me wonder: exactly how many customers does Donnelley have, anyway?

For the full video of Gecht’s “Fireside Chat” with Quinlan, please go online to MyPRINTResource.com: www.MyPRINTResource.com/12039336