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2/19/2008 1:00:00 AM
Press manufacturer MAN Roland is pushing ahead with plans for a stockmarket listing despite tougher credit conditions, the chief executive has told a German newspaper. Gerd Finkbeiner told Boersen-Zeitung in an interview printed on Saturday that the listing remained the best option for the company. "We are preparing ourselves for the IPO [initial public offering]," Finkbeiner said. However, he added that trading conditions were tough and banks were being "ultra-conservative" in giving credit."The credit crisis is the biggest challenge for us in the next few months," he added.Private equity firm Allianz Capital Partners, a unit of German insurer Allianz, owns 65% of MAN Roland, while German truck maker MAN owns the other 35%.Boersen-Zeitung said observers estimated the likely value of the listing at €500m (£374.4m).
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Darin Painter
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2/7/2008 1:00:00 AM
As noted in the GCW Greensheet that was published this week, commercial printing giant Quebecor World filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the United States. The Montreal-based firm, which prints a wide variety of publications including Time and Parade magazines, made the move after its banks failed to approve a rescue plan valued at C$400 million (US$390 million). The bailout was proposed by its controlling shareholder, media company Quebecor Inc., and a private-equity fund (Tricap Partners) managed by Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management. In its bankruptcy filing, the firm reported assets of between C$100 million and C$500 million and liabilities of more than C$1 billion. A number of long-term Quebecor World volume contracts with large clients are up for renewal, and it will be interesting to see how many re-sign. While the rest of the North American printing industry has adequate capacity to absorb Quebedor World's volume, even without its equipment (which will further deflate worldwide used equipment prices), larger buyers may move on. Also something we'll track: Quebecor World also announced that Quebecor World PLC, its web offset subsidiary in Corby, UK, is being placed into the administration of Ernst & Young LLP for possible sale. The facility employs 290 and produces magazines, catalogs and marketing and advertising materials. "This decision is not related to Quebecor World’s filing for credit protection in the United States and Canada and has no impact on its other European facilities," the firm said. (We'll see...)
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Darin Painter
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2/3/2008 1:00:00 AM
Customer surveys are an important way your team can assess its performance and identify areas that need improvement. They often tell you about small irritations, things that won't elicit a complaint from a customer but are troublesome nonetheless.
But you don't want to create a survey without determining what specific things you and your team hope to accomplish. Customer surveys take many forms, including written formats and end user focus groups. Your company can choose to send one survey to clients or develop a series of surveys to determine key information from a number of sources, such as several buyers within an account.
Before you begin, determine answers to these questions:
* Will the survey measure customer satisfaction levels because sales are not what they should be?
* Do you want to ask customers about a new product or service to predict sales response?
* Do you want to measure customer needs in the future against your firm's current products?
* Do you want to determine how technology or some other issue is affecting your customer, and therefore, your own firm as a vendor?
Your answers at this beginning stage will help you specify what kind of feedback you're looking for—answering "yes" to the first question, for example, will indicate your company should frame the survey to help you revamp customer service processes. The point is that you need to realize what you're looking for before you decide how you're going to organize your survey.
Here are tips for creating better surveys:
1. Tell clients about the survey before they receive it. A phone call, advance post card or a "heads up" from a sales rep may increase response.
2. Determine the best format for your customers to respond, including fax, e-mail, mail, the internet or in person. Surveys posted on a web site and those sent via e-mail and fax should be short, preferably, one page. Even for mail or in-person surveys, the shorter the better. Be sure to explain the reason for the survey and how the answers will help your firm better serve customers. This gives customers an incentive to respond.
3. Proofread the survey carefully for clarity, legibility and typographical errors. Determine if small details are important to your clients. Design it so it's easy to read and understand. Use check boxes or ask clients to circle selections so it can be filled out quickly.
4. Use your logo or company colors to clearly tie the survey to your firm.
5. Focus your questions on no more than three to five areas of your business and ask no more than five to seven questions in each area. For example, to find out about clients' technology needs, you could ask, "How are you using technology to create business forms?" A more general question to help future planning might be, "What are the challenges you are facing in the future?" This question also could be made more specific by asking, "What are the challenges you are facing in the future regarding information retrieval (or storage or any other issue you think might affect your clients)?" Then ask about needs in the next six months, the next year or next five years. Sometimes a general question provides invaluable insight. Here's a good one: "If there were any one thing we could do for you, what would it be?"
6. Plan how your firm will use the information collected. Inform your customers about the results and how you used them to improve service or product quality.
7. Include a letter from the company president indicating why the survey is important to your firm and to clients. It can appear on separate letterhead or be incorporated into the first page of the survey. Keep the message short, and thank participants for their help. You may want to say that results will be kept confidential or explain how and when results will be shared.
8. Leave space for clients to write comments. Although you may not want to do this on every question, most companies agree that written comments are the most valuable because they provide insights into respondents' thoughts.
9. Update the survey regularly. Delete or rewrite questions that were misinterpreted. Be sure to add questions to help you keep up with changing business conditions.
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Darin Painter
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2/2/2008 1:00:00 AM
One mile from Memphis International Airport, employees at the fastest-growing firm in the printing industry scramble to fulfill online orders in time for FedEx's last nightly pickup at 2 a.m. Over the past five years, hustle has helped the company, Mimeo.com, achieve 1,120 percent revenue growth—good enough to rank No. 277 on Inc. magazine’s October 2005 list of the country’s 500 fastest-growing private firms.
But Mimeo's hustle came with heartache. “In this growth mode, we began to run out of local, experienced talent to hire for skilled positions,” says Tom DeGreve, the firm's vice president and general manager of operations. “We want an error-free facility, and simple on-the-job training for new hires wasn't going to be the answer.”
Blended learning was. In January, Mimeo.com launched a training program for its 150-plus employees, including 12 CSRs, that mixes formal learning tools such as classroom workshops and study guides with informal ones such as threaded email discussions. The premise: Workers can learn more in the break room than in the classroom, so training should be a continuous process that occurs inside and outside corporate walls. Also, training should intermingle a variety of media such as streamlined video, CD-ROMs, and computer-based tutorials made available at a one-stop portal.
The premise has substance. According to a recent U.S. Department of Labor study, informal learning accounts for at least 70 percent of what employees know about their jobs. “Most companies lack a budget for incorporating this kind of learning,” says Dorman Woodall, director of Skillsoft Learning, Nashua, N.H. “Another problem is companies that do adopt blended learning tend to ignore valuable steps in the process, especially at the front and back ends.”
“We understand the need to help our CSRs train in a variety of ways,” DeGreve says, “The quality of our jobs is critical, so the quality of our employees is just as important. Understanding that we have to prepare workers and follow through with them, we're eager to see what our new training program can do.”
Howard Fenton, a technical/management consultant for the National Association for Printing Leadership as well as a renowned author and former editor of the prepress magazine Pre, says the No. 1 mistake printing firms make is underestimating the importance of an experienced, well-trained staff. "Often companies expect people with little experience, no training or limited background to work with sophisticated, digitally savvy customers," he says. "This results in customers questioning the digital abilities of those companies or taking submitted files and making them worse. Ironically, it doesn't take that much time and effort to train people. One or two days annually of focused training greatly can improve customer satisfaction, productivity and profitability."
Fenton says CSR training is more important now than ever, mainly because digital technology is changing rapidly. He says customer service managers should train staff to become "Digital CSRs" who understand the details of proper file preparation and can tactfully explain issues to customers without hurting their feelings. "When working with digital files, the biggest issue is that file problems aren't discovered early in the process," he says. "They're not discovered by the file creator, the CSR or anyone else until the file reaches the prepress or production area. This usually stalls production by several days because the production staff has to repair the files or find missing elements." He adds that companies with well-trained CSRs should train their customers to prepare accurate files, which enables their own firms to achieve better on-time delivery.
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Darin Painter
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