Exploring Corporate America Hercules CA

Climbing the corporate ladder" is a phrase that's long meant ascending from an entry-level position to top management of a major multinational company. But for some of the nation's more successful wide-format imaging firms, it has another connotation. These shops have captured business from big-name corporations, and are now in the process of upselling those corporate giants on the idea of still more work.

In this issue, Wide-Format Imaging talks to four shops about their experiences serving corporations, including the challenges of capturing corporate business, the demands made by clients, the ability to win additional business once serving corporate needs, and the keys to retaining the lucrative business of "household name" clients while pursuing additional accounts.

Academy Reprographics

Winning the business of a world-renowned corporation wasn't a big problem for Academy Reprographics, an Albuquerque, NM firm. At the time it won the Intel business, it had clients that dealt with Intel. Those clients made connections that enabled the shop to get in the door at the chipmaker, says president and owner Kevin O'Hea. That in turn led to Academy producing wide-format clean room prints for the corporate giant.

That was just the start. "We realized this was a big fish to land, and we approached Intel and were able to identify the buyers, or Intel purchasing groups, that handled the commodities we sold," O'Hea reports. "There was one group ordering the engineering printing. There was another group ordering plotter supplies. We could ask them what it was they bought that we sell, and who their end users were. That just elevated us as a source for the end users."

In winning business from Intel, Academy Reprographics benefited from the fact different departments within the corporation didn't always communicate effectively with one another, O'Hea adds. "We became the thread that helped Intel coordinate their projects, and saved them gobs of time and money," he says.

"The key to everything is collecting as much information from as wide a variety of people as possible," he reports. "That lets you understand the processes, and you may be able to provide them with a better solution, or at the very least understand their needs a little better."

In its experience with Intel, Academy Reprographics found the chipmaker could prove demanding when it came to turnaround time. O'Hea discovered end users within Intel often had little concern about a service's cost, as long as the project was turned around in the time required. But the corporation's own purchasing department took a different stance on the matter, arguing if projects took O'Hea's shop two days to complete, the projects should be given to the shop two days in advance. "And that's exactly how my contract with Intel now reads," O'Hea chuckles.

Once inside Intel, it was "terribly easy" selling additional services, O'Hea reports. That was probably because the chipmaker trusted the shop's ability to get projects done, and done right. "If we were asked to do something, we would honestly tell them if we could do it or not," he says.

"And if it was something extraordinary, we would research it for them, in order to determine if we could provide [the service] to them through our purchase order at a fair price and without sacrificing quality."

Today, Academy Reprographics' relationship with Intel provides the best of both worlds. On one hand, the shop keeps its Intel business and picks up even more by continuing to provide very high quality service and products. On the other hand, its status with Intel results in a cache that lures still other customers to the business.

"Everyone knows the high standards we're held to by Intel," O'Hea says. "That carries through to our everyday customers, even the independent, one-man contractor."

Graphic Systems Group LLC

When New York City-based Graphic Systems Group LLC (GSG) was in its first year of operation in 1995, the company's revenues rested on a 50-50 split of clients. One half the client mix was comprised of advertising agencies, the other half by designers, photographers, and corporations. Today, however, 70 percent of GSG's work is from corporations, the remainder from ad agencies.

Gaining corporate work isn't rocket science, says owner/partner Ken Madsen. "We have morphed into a production agency," he says. "We're more upstream, and integrated with taking a design or concept and helping a client execute that, as opposed to going through an ad agency."

Grabbing work that once went to agencies requires a certain level of discretion, however. Almost a third of his business still comes from agencies, Madsen notes. "But we've found with corporate clients, we build stronger partnerships, and longer-term partnerships. We have the same Fortune 500 clients we've had for 10 years."

Launching those relationships starts by getting to decision makers and informing them that GSG understands production. "We turnkey it," Madsen says. "We tell them the files need to be prepped correctly, they need to be resized, we make sure of the bleed, make sure the files are going to be printed correctly. It's not about price. It's about execution and making that head of production look good."

While corporate customers tend to be more demanding on technology and level of services, Madsen says that's just the start. One of his corporate clients requires GSG and all other suppliers have state-of-the-art security that allows for managing and storing assets and ensuring redundancy.

Many corporations also want a continuation of business plan, which details how the supplier would be able to continue operating if impacted by a disaster. And GSG has such a plan. "If my building goes down, tomorrow morning, I have 15 workstations I can tap into and go back to work."

The secrets to keeping corporate clients and gaining more work from them are pretty basic. It's simply a matter of providing levels of responsive service clients haven't witnessed before. That was evidently the case when a representative of one of the shop's many corporate clients, Major League Baseball, told Madsen his company could do things MLB simply hadn't seen from any other service provider.

"Show them new technologies and integrate them," he says. "It's all about how to make their life easier. If we can keep throwing more tools and solutions at our clients, that's the differentiator."

Inkjet International

Alok Sarna, vice-president of operations and sales with Dallas-based Inkjet International, credits a "consultative sales approach" with his firm's ability to capture big-name corporate clients.

The approach of which Sarna speaks is the key to calling on the right levels of prospective corporate clients, he explains. "We develop a coach—a key influential relationship within the account—who assists to open communication across the company. In turn, we gain a stronger foothold based on our performance."

But first, Inkjet International has to get past the gatekeepers. Learning a name, employing courtesy and making timely and manageable requests of gate-keepers opens a lot of doors, Sarna says.

In a customized job environment, knowledgeable customer sales representatives are key to giving corporations what they want. In addition to this human interaction, which Inkjet International believes is the preferred method of ordering and follow-up, the emergence of Web-based marketing, workflow management and order tracking are also helpful in forging alliances with corporations.

When it comes to turnarounds, Sarna believes the challenge in this age of digital printing is to make deadlines with uncompromising quality. "We have found that a quick turnaround time of one to three days is expected, but to an extent, has also become self-imposed," he adds. "It's just as important to allow the supplier the required time and space to deliver the job right as it is for that supplier to meet expectations. Close customer communication, with a healthy dose of grace, is a tasteful recipe."

Can shops pick up more corporate work once inside the door of a corporation? In Sarna's view, they not only can, they should. Good salespeople ask for the order or the opportunity, he says. Inkjet International provides detailed tours of its plant operation with the intent of showcasing all the technology, personnel, and logistics that go into its finished product. That serves to build opportunity, Sarna adds.

Pictura Graphics

Minneapolis-based Pictura Graphics in the past three to five years has emerged as one of the nation's higher-ranked digital companies, based on capabilities and revenues, says president and owner Paul Lilienthal. "When I purchased the company, I saw as the real opportunity the chance to expand and grow by attracting additional corporate clients, particularly in the retail sector," he says.

Gaining entry into corporations and obtaining an audience with key decision makers can be daunting, he notes. "A lot of companies in our segment all do basically the same thing," he says. "You have to be able to come across as having a solution to prospective clients' needs. You also have to know whom you're calling on. You better know their business. A simple cold call is not going to be returned."

Lilienthal finds corporations are much more advanced than smaller companies in their technologies and communications. And while he says Pictura doesn't have all the latest and greatest technologies, it does possess technologies competitors don't. Pictura tries to leverage those technologies to meet the needs of its corporate clients.

Selling corporations on additional services is very possible once a shop is in the door, Lilienthal believes. But companies like his can't take for granted that additional business will be made available. "You still have to upsell and ask for the business," he says. "At the corporate level, there are people changing in the key positions every day, so it's up to you to know your client as well as you can. We try to have as many as possible of our points of contact within corporations be advocates for us, and try to give them a good understanding of what we can do."

Ultimately, keeping and growing the corporate business, Lilienthal asserts, is a matter of staying in contact with that account and continually adding value. "You have to push yourself, and ask, 'What more can I do for that client?' and 'How can I do it better?' to strengthen that relationship," he observes.