New world of printing at PMI – Print21 magazine feature

There is a new dynamic in printing that is a million light years away from conventional commercial offset production. It centres on the internet and the web-to-print channel which continues the disintermediation of the relationship between printer and customers. A new breed of printers is coming to the fore, however, for whom the internet is simply a way of doing business. Patrick Howard met up with Chris Zapris of PMI to explore the future of printing.

Chris Zapris is careful when making claims for himself or his business, PMI. Alert to any suggestion of hype, he has little interest in blowing his own trumpet. However even the most sober detailing of his success makes for fascinating reading, a primer for the future of commercial printing. PMI, an acronym of passion meets integrity, is among the top three HP Indigo sites by volume in Australia. Nothing too extraordinary about that, except when you consider that 90 per cent of the jobs that pass through the Melbourne-based company are of 100 sheets of paper or less.

Not only that but a walk through the factory, which is buzzing with activity around three HP Indigo presses, reveals that almost all of the jobs bags—all that I could see anyway—have the magic stamp, PAID, on them before they are despatched!

In a commercial printing industry that is struggling with falling volumes, cash flow and credit issues, this is almost ridiculously desirable. For customers in the on-demand world of the internet, ordering printing over the web, there is no problem with an on-demand payment system. It is expected and it throws into sharp relief the 30-90 days that the average commercial printer has to wait for payment.

For embattled printers seeking a future in the industry, the success of PMI provides an example of how the future may operate. But it is not a template that can be easily copied. There are too many variables in every business success for a simple cut and paste and PMI is no different. Chris Zapris has come a long individualistic way to get out in front of the pack.


Ink in his veins

There are no offset presses in PMI’s array of print. It is a purely digital shop. But just next door is the family-owned business where Chris Zapris (pictured) grew up learning his trade and his craft. Founded by his father, John Zapris, and now run by his brother, Peter, Ellikon is a solid mid-sized offset commercial printer with a good business in publication print. It was where Chris Zapris went through his ‘baptism of fire’, honing his skills in prepress and printing. He left in the late 1990s to strike out on his own with PMI. It made sense to locate close to the family business to facilitate early synergies. But what began as a pure prepress shop pretty soon evolved as he recognised the oncoming digital revolution. First up he bought a Fuji Xerox Docutech, the workhorse of black and white digital production. Then in the early years of the century, as he began to see the wholesale change the internet was about to make to the way printing is bought and sold, he decided to get into colour production.

At that time there were two decisions that required action and development—one was to acquire a colour digital printing solution and the other to create a viable internet strategy. In retrospect it is hard to decide which of the two proved the most decisive. They were both foundational to the future success of PMI.

After extensive comparison testing on the available digital colour engines he decided to link his printing destiny to HP buying a HP Indigo 5000 from Currie Group. As a former offset printer, the brand’s digital ink result most closely matched his ambitions.

Since then PMI, HP Indigo and Currie Group has proved to be a cooperative and successful partnership. In the intervening years he has upgraded his presses frequently but, on his own admission, often not frequently enough. “You must realise it takes weeks, not months, to fill these machines. Experience tells me we always need extra capacity for redundancy, contingency and jobbing work. I recognise that at times I should have moved faster,” he said.

As the first press reached its capacity he went for the option of buying a second 5000 rather than upgrade to a faster machine. It was 2009 before he was finally convinced to go for a 7000. Even this proved less than capable of keeping up with the year-on-year increase in workload and this year he added an HP Indigo 7500 to his stable of presses.

It is one thing to develop the capacity, another thing entirely to gather the work. PMI’s success in tapping and creating a rich web-to-print flow of orders is impressive by any standards. Zapris is not about to divulge too many business secrets but the sheer number of orders that come into the business from the web portals vindicates his business model. He has always ploughed more investment into the development of web-to-print portals than into any other part of the business. It may seem to be a logical decision from this position of hindsight but, seven years ago, internet print ordering was far from a proven business model. Chris Zapris was one of the early internet print pioneers, focusing on the opportunity rather than the threat. It has proved to be a defining decision for him and his business.

“Web-to-print is a huge proportion of our work. I got into it in 2004 and since then I’ve spent a huge proportion of my investment on IT. We are a very tech-savvy company,” he comments.

It took personal vision to invest those kinds of resources in internet portals in the early days. No one knew how the market would turn out. At one stage he had 40 people working for two years building internet infrastructure, not all in Australia certainly, but still a massive investment. Even now PMI has two full-time software program creators constantly updating and developing internet sites.


Workflow is everything

The internet future of printing throws up myriad challenges, not least keeping track of the number of small on-demand jobs that come in on the web. For many of these, the pricing is so competitive that if they require human intervention the margin is lost. When PMI first confronted this problem, the initial response was to trial some off-the-shelf workflow and accounting packages.

Very soon though it became apparent that standard software was not going to cut it in the new paradigm. In addition to developing internet infrastructure the company had to invent its own workflow and MIS. Over the years this has also developed and is now a very sophisticated system that facilitates the thousands of printing jobs that pass through PMI every week.

Chris Zapris is quite happy to talk about PMI’s positioning and its business model, not because he considers himself above competition but because he knows the dynamics of his own success.

“What success we have is as a result of what we began seven years ago, not what we are developing today or will happen tomorrow, “ he says. “You can’t just turn it on overnight. The plans you make now will only start producing results in three to four year’s time.”

While Zapris is an exceptional futurist, he also recognises the limitations in planning.

“Plans are important but there’s no value in trying to plan too far ahead. It’s too hard beyond five years. Technology advances so fast, no one knows where it is going,” he adds.


Print and the future

To many in the traditional industry, the PMI business model of dealing directly with customers over the web on a one-on-one basis and fulfilling orders through digital technology represents all that is threatening to the future of printing. And Zapris concedes that for many in the mainstream there is little future. He singles out copy shops and small-to-mid-size offset commercial printers (with no defined marketing strategy) as segments with little ability to compete.

Part of the problem, he believes, is that they cannot access the internet to sufficient scale. They will miss the boat. He points out that at 35 years of age he is one of the oldest people in PMI and it’s true. Walking around the buzzing, energised production room is a world away from the manu-
facturing ethos of commercial offset where the age of pressmen is inevitably north of 40. Just the sheer number and variety of jobs on the floor of PMI is a quantum step away from normal production. It is no wonder that Zapris is committed to the importance of his company’s culture or that he is hugely confident about the future of printing.

“Print still has a place in the future, of course it does. It has an exciting future. You only have to see the way print is tied to other forms of media. Once upon a time the industry could rely on craft, but that type of printing has become a commodity. Too many printers are pedantic about our craft, saying this is the way it should be done. But it’s inevitable in years to come that print output will fall. Marketing must become our strongest investment. And that includes the internet.”

He believes printers must build stronger relationships with their customers. They can no longer rely on sales people. Automated marketing is the way of the future, he believes, developing databased profiles and responding to customers intelligently.

Brands are a big investment for PMI, especially internet brands. They are real assets, above and beyond the changing technology. As Chris Zapris puts it, “a brand is forever”.

And that is yet another way of addressing the future.