Solution selling is about digging around in the problems/challenges of your customers – from their perspective.
The business of print is about workflow – from order entry to invoice. When you go to purchase a solution for a part of that workflow, make sure you consider the impacts up and down stream.
Create a strategy before you look for enabling technology – people create strategies, businesses, and processes – technology simply enables their creations.
Web to print has been narrowly defined as B2C portals with VDP applications, there is a much more valuable definition that is based on self-service ecommerce.
Print sales is more about the procurement process than the manufacturing process – your sales team should utilize your order entry system as a value add. Your first sale is internal, web to print adoption starts with your resources – especially sales.
In times of transition, leadership can be more effective taking on the role of coach vs. boss. A coach knows the individual talents of their team and puts them in the best position to thrive – punters are punting, lineman are blocking. Your people in the wrong position can cause a lot of pain.
Integration is part of almost every software conversation these days, but what does it really mean? When two systems act as if there are one – you have real seamless integration. Most integrations fall very short of this ideal.
Playing offense can sometimes mean you eat into your existing revenue streams to capture new revenue streams.
Production workflow starts and ends with your customer – order entry to invoice. When you add solutions like web to print, its a great opportunity to review your workflow to see how the new tool optimizes/changes/removes steps in your process.
Successful software implementation is about managing change and all the fear that comes with it. Don’t be fooled by long lists of requirements prior to launch, deal with the underlying fear of new processes upfront by moving the project from theoretical to real success as quickly as possible.