Research Archive
A Service Provider Perspective on the Customer Communications Industry, 2nd Edition
Customer communications management (CCM) is a dynamic industry that continues to evolve and adapt because of changes in technology, increased competition, and strict regulatory requirements. These changes not only affect enterprises that produce communications for consumers, but for all stakeholders who are involved in the CCM ecosystem. Print service providers (PSPs) are not exempt from feeling the impact of these dynamics. Historically, these organizations were the final step in the document lifecycle and were responsible for the physical manufacturing of documents and submission to the United States Postal Service (USPS) for delivery. Documents were printed and mailed for a variety of reasons, such as providing transaction history via a bank statement, generating bills to receive payment for service, proving evidence of insurance with a policy or contract, or simply communicating information to customers via a letter. All other processes involved in the logical creation of these documents occurred further upstream and remained the responsibility of the enterprise. In response to this rapidly evolving industry, many print service providers have expanded beyond print and mail to offer document creation services and omni-channel delivery.
Hosted Managed Services: Changing the Paradigm in Customer Communications Management
Customer Communications Management (CCM) is rapidly evolving as enterprises continue to expand their communications infrastructure to address a variety of needs, both internal and customer, while leveraging new technology capabilities. The challenge, however, is that these communications infrastructures are continuing to grow instead of evolve, creating overly complex environments which include unsupported solutions, homegrown systems, and software that is far behind the current version. This in turn, removes focus from an overall customer engagement strategy, as enterprises are concerned with getting customer communications delivered. While CCM solution vendors have grown their portfolios to include software that addressed the expanding needs of enterprises, the existing infrastructures and lack of resources make it challenging to fully implement these new solutions…
TransPromo Workflow Solutions: An Evolving Market Defined
Rising economic and competitive pressures have forced many enterprises to look at how they can transform the transactional document, such as monthly statements and invoices, into a marketing tool with a high ROI through the addition of highly personalized, promotional data. The end result of this transformation is the emergence of TransPromo documents.
Madison Advisors recently conducted a study on the market drivers, trends, and the latest solution advancements shaping today’s TransPromo Workflow market. Key findings from the research effort include:
Service Provider Market Pricing Study
The outsourced transactional print market is under intense price pressure. Service providers, focused primarily on print, must compete with other service providers as well as adapt to the growing transition to electronic delivery. While many core applications, such as statements and policies, resist transition to electronic media, many of the ancillary applications that provided higher profit margins for print service providers have diminished due to higher electronic delivery adoption rates. As service providers transition to multi-channel delivery models, differing pricing models are emerging for electronic services.
Document Composition Market Study, 3rd Edition
A common communication strategy is vital for maintaining ongoing and productive interaction between organizations and their customers. Document composition solutions enable organizations to create effective communications in multiple formats. But with so many choices, it’s often hard to choose. In our Document Composition Market Study, Third Edition, Madison Advisors assesses market trends and demands, as well as the latest solution advancements. Key findings from the study include:
Document Composition Market Study
Madison Advisors has recently completed an extensive study of the document composition market in which we assessed market trends and demands, as well as the latest solution advancements. Key findings from the study include:
Enterprise Output Management Market Study
Madison Advisors has recently completed an extensive study of the document composition market in which we assessed market trends and demands, as well as the latest solution advancements. Key findings from the study include:
Market Study: Enterprise Output Management Systems, 3rd Edition
Madison Advisors’ examination of the enterprise output management systems (EOMS) market in this transitional time of growing demand for multi-channel communications reveals that most products focus heavily on print management. Madison Advisors expects a significant round of vendor acquisition and consolidation to alter the EOMS landscape. Key findings from the study include:
Beyond ROI: Increasing Production Efficiencies with Inkjet Printers
Before making the investment in color inkjet technology, a company will typically focus its research efforts on three key features: output quality, throughput and the range of supported media. In addition to these features, the service capabilities of the manufacturer and cost considerations make up the main decision criteria. The sales and marketing teams for both the inkjet printer manufacturer and its resellers focus their efforts on highlighting the capabilities of the equipment. To demonstrate these capabilities and narrow the buyer’s focus on the printer, customer test files are often used to compare the output of several different printers. While print quality and speed are important considerations, Madison Advisors believes many companies tend to overlook the importance of workflow when conducting due diligence, which results in a diminished realization of the full value of an inkjet investment. Workflow software selection is often conducted as an ancillary project only after the capital investment has been made in the printer. It is our opinion that this decision sequence should, in fact, be reversed…
Inbound Mail, Delivery and Return Mail Assessment Study
Madison Advisors’ Inbound Mail, Delivery and Return Mail Assessment Study is designed to examine the best practices for developing inbound mail and delivery efficiencies as well as identifying return mail best practices to lower waste and re-mailing costs. Through a series of site visits, Madison Advisors examined digital mail processing, including the workflow and business processes, for delivery of everyday United States Postal Service (USPS) mail to employees – a solution that many clients are looking to incorporate into their future business plans.
Hosted Managed Services: Changing the Paradigm in Customer Communications Management
Customer Communications Management (CCM) is rapidly evolving as enterprises continue to expand their communications infrastructure to address a variety of needs, both internal and customer, while leveraging new technology capabilities. The challenge, however, is that these communications infrastructures are continuing to grow instead of evolve, creating overly complex environments which include unsupported solutions, homegrown systems, and software that is far behind the current version. This in turn, removes focus from an overall customer engagement strategy, as enterprises are concerned with getting customer communications delivered. While CCM solution vendors have grown their portfolios to include software that addressed the expanding needs of enterprises, the existing infrastructures and lack of resources make it challenging to fully implement these new solutions…
Cloud Impact On CCM Offerings Study
Madison Advisors has recently completed a study of cloud delivery strategies in the Customer Communications Management (CCM) marketplace. Madison Advisors assessed overall cloud delivery market trends, as well as the strategies, solutions and core capabilities for cloud-based delivery among eight participant companies in the CCM solutions delivery market. A summary of the companies participating in this study is shown below and on the following page:
ADF GOES MAINSTREAM
Organizations face increased pressure from customers to deliver better customer communications. Traditional monochrome and line-mode bills have been replaced by color documents with graphics that reflect historical buying or usage patterns. Demand for multi-channel delivery has also increased. While roughly 25% of customers receive documents electronically, the rest receive the same documents in paper form.
CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTIONS MARKET STUDY 5T H EDITION UPDATE
Madison Advisors’ examination of the customer communications management (CCM) market, in this transitional time of emerging social media contact and cloud-based infrastructure, reveals that traditional document composition solutions have pivoted to more robust CCM solutions. While most of the vendors provide robust support for electronic output formats, few offer strong support for social media channels. In addition, data analytics remains a growth area of functionality for many vendors. Key findings from the study include:
ADF GOES MAINSTREAM
Organizations face increased pressure from customers to deliver better customer communications. Traditional monochrome and line-mode bills have been replaced by color documents with graphics that reflect historical buying or usage patterns. Demand for multi-channel delivery has also increased. While roughly 25% of customers receive documents electronically, the rest receive the same documents in paper form.
Inbound Mail, Delivery and Return Mail Assessment Study
Madison Advisors’ Inbound Mail, Delivery and Return Mail Assessment Study is designed to examine the best practices for developing inbound mail and delivery efficiencies as well as identifying return mail best practices to lower waste and re-mailing costs. Through a series of site visits, Madison Advisors examined digital mail processing, including the workflow and business processes, for delivery of everyday United States Postal Service (USPS) mail to employees – a solution that many clients are looking to incorporate into their future business plans.
MULTI-CHANNEL DELIVERY MARKET STUDY, 3RD EDITION
The Madison Advisors’ Multi-Channel Delivery Market Study, 3rd Edition (2013) is a continuation of the series that began in 2009 as the ‘Print Suppression Market Study’. In 2011, the study title was updated to ‘Multi-Channel Delivery Market Study’. While we have changed the name to more accurately reflect the multi-channel nature of the study, our focus remains on gauging how the market is progressing in substituting electronic – or multi-channel – content as a replacement for printed, post-sale transaction and customer care documents. The study also focuses on the strategies and techniques that enterprises are using to manage their multi-channel offerings, and the results of these efforts.
Multi-Channel Delivery Market Study
Print suppression, also known as the “paperless” movement, has made tremendous advances in niche consumer markets such as ticket sales, magazine distribution, book sales, and tax filings. Business-to-business paperless transactions have also become widely accepted thanks to the decades-old EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) standard and the ever-increasing use of computerized databases and transaction records.
Market Study: Multi-Channel Solutions for Customer Communications Management
Madison Advisors’ examination of the customer communications management (CCM) market in this transitional time of emerging multi-channel contact reveals that traditional document composition vendors lead the market in support for the full range of customer communications. Most of the vendors appear well prepared to support demands for composing electronic communications with the same level of corporate control and regulatory compliance available to printed communications. Key findings from the study include:
Service Provider Market Pricing Study
One of the keys to staying competitive is understanding your competition. But another key to staying competitive is understanding not only how you compete in the market but where the market is heading overall. To better understand the print service provider market’s direction, Madison Advisors is conducting two Market Pricing Studies for print and mail providers in North America. This is the first of the two studies. The next will be published in 2008.
Service Provider Market Pricing Study, 2nd Edition
In business, one of the keys to remaining competitive is understanding your competition. In addition, you need to know your competitive standing, as well as where the market is headed overall. To better understand the service provider market’s direction, Madison Advisors conducted two Service Provider Market Pricing Studies for print and mail providers in North America that present our extensive research and analysis related to competitive pricing of the industry’s leading organizations. This is the second of the two studies. The first was published in 2007.
Service Provider Market Pricing Study, 3rd Edition
The outsourced transactional print market is under intense price pressure. Service providers, focused primarily on print, compete with both other service providers as well as a growing transition to electronic delivery. While many core applications, such as statements and policies, resist transition to electronic media, many of the ancillary applications that provided higher profit margins for print service providers have seen greater electronic delivery adoption rates. Yet, despite this transition, many large service providers cannot articulate standard pricing models for electronic services.
Service Provider Multi-Channel Market Study
Multi-Channel delivery of customer communications has radically and irreversibly changed the Service Provider landscape, as the struggle for market dominance and, ultimately, survival depends on establishing a beachhead in this new growth market. Evolving delivery platforms are changing production methods and processes, slashing costs significantly, and enabling ultra high quality, security, and delivery compliance.
Madison Advisors’ examination of the Service Provider market for Multi-Channel delivery of customer communications reveals the changes to the competitive forces at work in the market, provides insights into the specific Multi-Channel offerings, and discusses what to look for when evaluating these services.
