I recently had the pleasure of speaking with four IPMA members on our Webinar: The Present and Future of In-Plant Print Mail Communications. You can view the replay here.

Our webinar panelists included Tammy Golden, Assistant Commissioner of Document Solutions at State of Tennessee and Mike Lincoln, State of Colorado Printer. In a recent IPMA blog, I shared how Tammy and Mike assessed their teams and services so they could adapt and grow. Both teams implemented changes and experienced growth in 2021. On the webinar, they shared how they are responding to staffing challenges and paper shortages while leveraging strong partnerships to meet their clients’ needs for printing and mailing.

The webinar included two additional speakers, Lauren Tarbet: Copy Supervisor, Pflugerville (Texas) Independent School District, and Danelle Clark, Enterprise Correspondence Technologies Manager, American Family Insurance.

In September of 2020, I spoke with managers running large in-plant print operations — Mike Lincoln, Colorado State Printer and Tammy Golden, Assistant Commissioner of Document Solutions at State of Tennessee. Despite significant differences in print volumes and approaches, both managers expressed the need to assess, adapt and expand their services to meet the changing requirements of their customers.

In-plants continue to face multiple staffing challenges from high absenteeism, large numbers of retirements, and state mandated hiring freezes.

June is here. Summer travel has begun. Depending on your geography, restrictions on business and gatherings are over or soon will be. B2B employees are beginning to return to their offices. Mail volumes are up significantly over this time last year and many print service providers are experiencing growth in print volumes across many sectors. After overcoming the hurdles of 2020, the biggest challenge of the summer may be adequate staffing for production volumes.

In printing, mailing, and direct marketing companies, most production work is highly functional with distinct departments. There are separate units for data processing, creative design, pre-press, printing, finishing, mailing, and shipping.

Competition is fierce in the printing business. Nearly every print operation can buy the same equipment and software you use to run your business.