For the past 4-5 years, Print Service Providers (PSPs) have been trying to keep pace with latest evolution in technologies, movement to digital technologies, and burgeoning demands & expectations of customers to cover the print volume decline and create unique digital journeys for consumers. However, the transformation lacked pace, due to fear of cannibalisation of print, lack of willingness to change, no clear right direction and push from the upper management.

At this juncture, the COVID-19 pandemic has in many ways fast-tracked the push from Print to Digital, with providers now being forced to bring in digital solutions at a rapid pace. Budgets are being relooked to focus on investments in digital technologies & solutions, along with reduced operational spends.

It is time to restructure and realign the roles, bring in new leaders who are focussed as Change Agents, work with right set of Partners who have same mind set and can usher rapid digital transformation.

Some of the quick win areas towards digital transformation that are being considered are:

Digital Experience Management

More and more customers are going digital and spend most of their time either doing work or making transactions on their devices and digital platforms. These customers demand exceptional and personalised digital experiences.

Your Digital Experience Management (DXM) platform acts as the single source of interaction with your customers who prefer to transact with you for accessing solutions, knowing more about your offerings and taking purchase decisions. A state of art DXM solution delights customers not just with a good interface or right solutions but with interactions that are contextual, relevant and personalised.

Data & Analytics

Having access to data is one thing and doing something worthwhile with it is another. PSPs always have had access to data like communication open rates, bounce backs, impact of communications, batch analytics etc. Using cloud-based Data Lake solutions allow the proper usage of such data, and thereby provide meaningful reports and insights to customers as value additions.

Applying ML and NLP on data offers added opportunities that have enormous potential for the print industry, but most businesses in the industry are yet to capitalise on these benefits as getting insights from data and predictive analytics require new expertise and competencies. Identifying pilot use cases and kick starting is critical.

Scale up/down with Cloud

Using scalable Cloud platforms and Hybrid multi cloud solutions combines the best of on-premise, AWS, Azure to consider best in class solutions. In addition, cloud provides access to plethora of ready services (from Azure/AWS) which can be used to replace siloed tech solutions or legacy systems.

Cloud-based solutions represent the answer to the constant operational & maintenance issues and lack of intuitive new features that legacy systems carry, rapid deployment of digital solutions with needed flexibility. Therefore, it has become imperative for print industry players to adopt cloud for remaining relevant.

Intelligent automation and hyperautomation coupled with RPA are going to be the mainstays in the new normal and in post-COVID times. It is empowering businesses to be creative, agile, flexible and at the same time be compassionate, by augmenting human capabilities and business scope further.

There are number of highly repetitive and manual tasks which can be automated using RPA technologies. Some of these include simple data transfer, finance/invoice processing, etc. Going ahead, RPA and intelligent automation are going to be invaluable assets for organisations to tackle operational overload and changing customer needs.

Shift in Mind Set: Way Ahead

As the world continues to grapple with the present crisis, it is a crucial time for all businesses including the print industry for a complete shift in thinking, creation of new paradigms and restructuring.

PSPs will need to take up the actual task of communicating by emerging and evolving from the print mind set and take up all tasks that serves their customer’s communication needs better. It is a significant time in the industry and a great opportunity to revamp business models and align as Complete Communications Provider (CCP) moving beyond Print Service Provider (PSP). The only key ingredient is mindset and willingness to embrace change rapidly!