November 8, 2016, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors announced today that its chief operating officer, Warren Lederer, will present a session at the Xploration Tour at the Broadridge Financial Solutions offices in Dallas on November 10. Lederer’s topic, “CCM—Redefining and Driving CX,” will discuss the broad role throughout an organization that customer communications management encompasses today, from outbound and inbound communications, to archiving, to related workflow processes—and how each channel influences the customer experience.

Sponsored by Pitney Bowes, the one-day event will feature an analyst industry overview, four educational sessions and a final panel discussion, moderated by Madison Advisor’s Lederer, addressing best practices and technologies that drive customer communications. The Dallas event is the first stop in the year-long five-city tour.

The Xploration Tour program is a joint venture with the Xplor USA Region, providing educational programming, information and networking opportunities for technology users and suppliers in the digital document industry across North America and for members of Xplor, the Electronic Document Systems Association.

For more information about the Xploration Tour, visit this link.

By DPS Staff

The past year was an exciting one for the printing industry. Drupa took place this Spring, again focusing on inkjet, as well as the growth of digitally printed labels and packaging. The event also hosted previews and announcements of new and updated products from leading vendors.

In addition to the physical print, many changes are on the horizon for document/customer communications management.

Both the physical and virtual words come together to intensify the possibilities for brand owners and continue to improve customer experience across the board.
Since it’s a lot to take in, we’ve asked industry analysts to share their thoughts on the key highlights of 2016. With the help of these expert opinions, we see how the latest software and equipment developments, as well as cultural shifts, shape the future of communications, and in effect—the overall print industry, especially as digital becomes more prevalent.

READ MORE

October 4, 2016, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors president, Kemal Carr, and senior analyst, Gina Ferrara, will host a panel at Canon’s thINK 2016 Conference on what to consider in the build versus buy decision when it comes to outsourcing transactional print. The event, exclusively for Canon Solutions America production print customers and partners/sponsors, will take place October 10-12 in Boca Raton, Florida.

Madison Advisors’ panel discussion, to be held October 11 at 9:00-9:50 a.m., will cover the key considerations that drive the decision to outsource print and highlight strategies for in-plant operations to increase productivity and streamline operations to justify keeping print in-house.  In addition, Carr and Ferrara will discuss how the benefits of color inkjet technology fit this profile and how organizations can justify the capital expense while getting the most out of an investment in that technology.

Specifics covered will include:

• The six factors that create the “Perfect Storm,” thus driving the decision to outsource print
• The good, bad and ugly for outsourcing print—the positives and negatives of outsourcing print and what mistakes to avoid when outsourcing
• Color inkjet technology—what are the benefits of including this technology in the decision stream, how to make the most of an investment and how to generate interest in transitioning from monochrome to color documents across your organization
• Outsourcing:  Three options to consider—outsourcing print is one solution, but it is not the only solution
• Defending against the outsourcing conversation—strategies for keeping print in house and the rain gear needed to defend against the “Perfect Storm”

For more information about thINK 2016, visit this link.

By Judith Aquino

Have you heard the story about the elephant? Three blind men felt their way around an elephant and each man believed his interpretation was correct and that the other two were wrong. Without comprehensive data, customer experience officers are as blind and misinformed as the men in the story.

Decision-makers may find themselves reviewing performance data collected from a computer system or database they’ve never seen, making it difficult to assess the accuracy of the data. And given that nearly everything about the customer experience is measurable, how can companies identify the right metrics to get a holistic view of the customer?

READ MORE

By Gina Ferrara

9/30/2016

Determining whether to shut down your internal print and mail operation and outsource to a print service provider, as opposed to keeping it in-house and potentially making a capital investment in new technology, can be a tough conversation. Those in favor of the latter option will cite concerns over sending customer data outside the organization and advocate that investing in new technology will improve operational workflows, enhance the customer experience, and increase brand recognition by adding color to documents, as well as potentially generate a better ROI for the organization. Proponents of outsourcing believe that print is not a core competency and argue that outsourcing to a service provider would be the less expensive alternative. While there may be a variety of reasons that cause an organization to consider closing up shop, there are a few factors that, when considered together, can create the perfect storm.

1. Decline in transactional print volumes

Electronic delivery of customer communications was a high priority for many organizations as a cost reduction strategy. While adoption rates may have varied, electronic delivery nonetheless caused transactional print volume to decline, even causing some enterprises to consolidate production into one site. Print volumes decline, unit costs go up, and outsourcing becomes more financially attractive.

2. Equipment has reached end of life or end of lease

Enterprises in need of a technology refresh may not be willing to make the investment or be able to justify the expense. New technology can speed production, streamline operations, enhance documents with color capability, and reduce risk; however, if priorities have changed and the CCM strategy has shifted toward enhancing the digital experience, convincing management to invest in print technology may be a tough hurdle to overcome.

Read More

8/1/16

by Jeff Weldon, CDIA+ Senior Analyst, Madison Advisors, Inc.

If we start with the bottom line, digital production workflow is all about getting the most out of your digital production equipment. It’s as simple as that. There are many steps that go into a particular workflow, but in the end, the objective is to get information onto paper and off to a consumer. This might be a transactional workflow where the objective is to get statements printed and mailed within very tight SLAs and budgets or it could be about getting brochures or enrollment kits to a client to drive new business. In either case, the printers and finishing equipment are at a standstill until the digital production workflow is executed for each job. There are several recent advances in workflow technologies that can help improve the end-to-end process of getting print jobs out the door efficiently.

Read More

By Judith Aquino

Marketers and industry experts discuss the top mistakes that undermine customer experiences and how to fix them.
Customer Experience
Part of creating a great customer experience requires separating myth from reality.

In the rush to embrace customer-centric practices and drive revenue, it's easy for companies to focus on adopting new strategies without analyzing how these approaches impact their customers and whether they're sustainable. Here, analysts and industry experts identify some of the biggest myths that can undermine a business's efforts to improve the customer experience and how to avoid those pitfalls.

READ MORE

By Gina Ferrara, Senior Analyst, Madison Advisors

Insurance enterprises are at an inevitable crossroad. In an attempt to stay abreast of changing expectations with customer communications, many companies have tried to expand their communication infrastructure by purchasing a software tool that allows for the personalization and multichannel delivery options they need. If an IT department doesn’t have the resources—or the needed technical skills—to keep up as these solutions continue to evolve, a company can easily fall behind in achieving its strategic communication goals. Add to that a shift in priorities with the focus now on how well a document engages the customer. Is there a better way to effectively meet today’s customer communication expectations and lead to the ROI and value insurance organizations desire?

Historically, enterprises have looked to software providers to meet their customer communications management (CCM) requirements and providers have responded with feature-rich document composition software. Over the years, however, customer communication requirements have evolved. Subsequently, new offerings have emerged while others have fallen by the wayside. As a result, insurers have invested in a proliferation of point solutions to fill gaps and address changing needs. And still, they continue to struggle to achieve their strategic customer communication goals.

Read More

4/18/16 

April 18, 2016, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors today announced it will sponsor an Executive Roundtable on May 12 at Document Strategy Forum ’16 held May 10-12 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Chicago. The roundtable will take attendees through seven key workflow components of customer communications management, including data, preference, composition, delivery and archive using Madison Advisors’ customer communications management maturity model as a baseline.

Madison Advisors’ Gina Ferrara, senior analyst, and Stephanie Pieruccini, vice president of research and enterprise & technology consulting services, will facilitate a working discussion with attendees to help them evaluate the maturity level in each key workflow bucket, identify how their communication workflows rank compared to their peers, understand the specific gaps and provide actionable tips on how to overcome some of the more common challenges.

 Key learning objectives of the Executive Roundtable will include:

• Work-in-progress assessment of current communications infrastructure compared to peers
• Questions to ask to understand the specific gaps and how to overcome them
• Proven industry data showing growth opportunities to improve communications

In addition to sponsoring the Executive Roundtable, Madison Advisors’ Pieruccini will participate in a panel discussion on May 11, “The Next-Gen Marketing Strategy: Aligning Campaigns, Channels and Analytics.” This session will discuss why organizations can no longer apply a one-size-fits-all approach to communications at any stage of the customer journey and how to build a unique understanding of prospects and customers through automation, discovery, analytics and account management.

Register to attend the Document Strategy Forum at https://www.expotracshows.com/dsf/2016/. 

April 7, 2016, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors today announces that Jeff Weldon, senior analyst for Madison Advisors, will be speaking at MAILCOM ’16 on why a carefully planned print/mail strategy is a critical part of every business model. MAILCOM’s 36^th annual convention will be held April 11-13 at the Courtyard Philadelphia Downtown Marriott in Philadelphia.

This informative presentation “Prepare Your Company for the Future of Print: Insource vs. Outsource” is on April 13 from 1-2 pm. Weldon will share methods industry peers are using to address the decision whether to leave print in-house or explore using outside print service providers. He will outline why a company’s chances of success in choosing in-house, outsourced or a combination of options are greater if they follow seven basic principles. Additionally, Weldon will cover the common challenges companies face in this key decision, market opportunities and other proven actionable go-to-market strategies and recommendations for success.

As a senior analyst for Madison Advisors, Weldon provides both end-user and vendor project-based advisory services in the enterprise output technology space, as well as for print service providers. He has extensive knowledge of output management systems in the transactional and print-on-demand markets, including print management and workflow systems and leading electronic delivery solutions.

For more information on MAILCOM ’16, visit http://mailcom-conference.com.