Yesterday FedEx/Kinko’s announced the opening of a new World Production Center in Memphis for processing and shipping business documents, which will include a high volume of construction documentation. FedEx/Kinko’s calls the opening an “exponential increase” in their capabilities to handle the “most complex, large-scale orders and orders that present the greatest challenges. … The expansion demonstrates the success of FedEx/Kinko’s new business model, information logistics, which aims to move customer information in the fastest, most flexible and innovative way.”
Kevin Rowe, President of US Reprographics Network, sees something different: one more threat to the traditional reprographics industry that has printed and delivered construction documentation for generations.
“This is BIG news,” Rowe tells subscribers to his email newsletter. “Three years ago at our 2002 USRN Leadership Conference, we stated: ‘FedEx/Kinko's is one vice-president away from getting in our business.’ Well, that VP is now on-board. You can’t keep thinking FedEx is only wanting to be in the shipping business. Instead, FedEx/Kinko's IS interested in OUR business.” (Emphasis appears in original quote).
Digital printing and the rise of deliver-then-print strategies have impacted the reprographics industry in recent years. Some have fought back by forming regional or national alliances (such as USRN) and by providing Web-based print management software to their clients. We are aware that Océ, one of the largest providers of equipment and IT to reprographers, is working on a next-generation software product for this space that should be out soon.
If reprographers do not want to be further marginalized by technical progress, they need to embrace change with a fevered passion and re-engineer their businesses. The US Reprographics Network is having a leadership conference next month in San Antonio. If my local reprographics shop were an affiliate, I would hope the boss is planning to go.
--RSN