Inkish TV - Call in the experts: internal staff or external consultants?

09 jul. 2021

Inkish TV - Call in the experts: internal staff or external consultants?

Calling in an expert can be the missing link to successfully find and implement the right tools or automation for your printing business.

In this 10 to INKISH episode we address some of the major questions that arise.

What is the extra value an external consultant can bring to the table?

I really like the term external experts. Because it identifies what I think are the two value points. The first thing is that it is someone who is external. He’s outside your company. And that means that their vantage point is almost certainly going to be completely different than your own. It is always easier to spot the problems in someone else’s organization than it is in your own organization. That’s how it is. And then next to that, the expert part is, of course, important as well.

Even if you have technical people in your company, you probably don’t have technical people who spend one hundred percent of their time thinking about preflight quality control. Web-to-print automation, you name it. An external expert, that is probably what they do. They think about this all the time. And they think about it and refer what they see in different companies. And the experiences that they see in different companies can help what happens in your company. So, I think those are the two main values in there.

Isn’t it going to be much more expensive?

It’s not going to be for free. That should be obvious. I think if you bring in expertise then that needs to be paid for. If you bring in quality expertise, again, quality is paid for. When this topic comes up with printers, I sometimes ask them whether they are going to print my business cards for free. And unfortunately, so far the answer is, is negative and that’s how it should be to be honest.

What you need to ask yourself is: if I don’t do this, how much efficiency, how much money do I leave on the table by not bringing in someone external? And by not trying to solve the problems that we’re running into. So of course, you need to look at balance and return on investment. That is important. And you need to find an expert that you feel happy with and that you can trust. But I think if you look at good advice, the return on investment is always there. Whether it’s immediate or in the long term.

Do you only work for big printers (who can afford this)?

Strangely enough, a lot of the most influential projects that we do with people are relatively small. Because if you focus on a real pain point and you can solve that, then that’s going to have a really big effect on the organization. So, what you see is that sometimes we just come in and we do a few hours of training or a few days of training on software that they already have.

And that allows them to be much more efficient. Or you work with them on creating a preflight report that is easier to understand for their clients. Which then kind of redefines the relationship you have with those clients. So, when you’re thinking about a project that you do with an external expert, you shouldn’t always think that the whole company is going to change. It can be really small things, low-hanging fruits. And so, no, I don’t think that this is only for a bigger organization. So, I think the impact can be just as profound and just as affordable for smaller printers.

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