DC: Who is James Shand EDP, and what does he do?
JS: I am a guy who started his working life as a trainee electronics engineer. It was just around the time computers were starting to be used commercially so applied to be a trainee computer operator for less money and working shifts – some 40 years ago. I discovered the world of digital printing in the late 70’s when I was managing the data centre and was looking for a solution to our line printer problems and discovered the Xerox 9700. It was love at first sight and the start of a great relationship building a digital print service bureau as a career of now more than 30 years in digital printing.
One major influence on this career has been my longstanding (30 years in 2011) activities with Xplor International the digital print industry association. I have had the honour of being the first non-North American President as well as the first to serve multiple terms and still active as a member of the board as well as supporting Xplor UK & Ireland.
Today my full time job is Managing Director of a niche business – TriPartum Limited, UK. I have two partners and there are six of us in the business with recruitment taking place for more developers. We focus on delivering effective customer communications by bringing business process analysis, document content design and data integration together as a single service. This enables us to work with clients from data source through to delivery of a customer communication across all channels. Whilst we don’t physically print we do involve ourselves in the production processes because we see this as part of the effective delivery. We have recently moved the office from a serviced centre in town to a 2,000 sq ft converted country barn on a rural business park in the middle of the countryside. It’s great driving through the English countryside to work then hearing the birds outside the window, which you can actually open without fear of urban fumes, and the harvest taking place all around us. As a creative working environment life does not get any better than this.
DC: What exactly is Transpromo?
JS: Apart from being an ugly word which was created to try and articulate the utilisation of the transactional document by combining marketing messages and images – marketing opportunity for an incremental cost. The catalyst for this was clearly the development of full colour digital printing technology combined with composition software platforms integrating customer data which has been mined sufficiently to deliver timely, appropriate and relevant messages.
Whilst the concept was first identified as part of a transactional document by way of a statement, invoice or bill, which really applied to any regular communication you sent to a customer, providing the incremental cost argument. Today the concept is being applied to any type of communication so we would rather refer to as ‘integrated marketing communications’ hence our strap line of Customer | Content | Communication. It’s all about the serendipity moment in customer communications that Gartner described many years ago.
DC: Who brings the advertiser and the client together? Is it like buying an ad space in a publication except you buy space on a Harrod’s statement?
JS: There are two ways of bringing the advertiser to the page. Firstly it can simply be the originating company cross-selling or up-selling their products and services which is a simpler process as it is controlled internally. It changes the dynamics of the document from being operationally driven, therefore a cost issue, to being marketing driven and therefore a revenue channel. The store card option is slightly different because the store can offer the ‘brand concessionaires’ the opportunity to market their offers and goods by data mining the stores customer database.
The other option which is catching on is for the service provider to ‘own’ the white space on the customer document. In this model the service provider sells the space to approved and trusted third parties therefore taking the incremental cost but also the revenue and offering a reduced operational cost to their customer. We are working with one retailer on exactly this model so ask again in a few months and we will tell you if it works.
DC: What is your global perspective on the “State of Print?”
JS: This is the $64,000 question. In my Global travels the one thing I have learnt is that there is no global print market as such other than the term ‘print’. There are so many culture differences that impact the print industry, especially digital printing, that each country or region has its own market. Take TransPromo as an example. What works in the USA does not automatically translate into an application for the Middle East or Asia. For one thing the states of the databases are different so the key factor for data mining is very different. In Israel there is no strong Direct Mail market so TransPromo has been their chosen channel for a number of years with some very creative solutions for marketing store discount vouchers on credit card and bank statements. This would not be a welcome option here in the UK today because the banks are very conservative and we have regulatory guidelines which restrict the ways in which you can market on credit card statements.
What I do see is digital printing being the dominant technology being led by inkjet which provides the speed and unit cost. Those service providers and printers who equip themselves with the ability to manage customer data to data mine so as to help marketers communicate with customers will be the survivors. There will still be a lot of ‘print’ companies who will fall by the wayside over the next 2 years because there is still over capacity in the market as e-delivery of documents increases its popularity. There will continue to be print – in my lifetime anyway – to communicate to consumers for the B2C market as they will continue to state their preferences so the multi-channel environment will remain for some time to come.
DC: Digital Printing is a huge growth area in America, is Europe leading or following in that trend?
JS: Yes it is a growth area in Europe but clearly the demographic and geographic size is different. From the various applications I get to see I would say Europe is still a little further ahead in utilisation of digital printing for B2C communications and the application of integrated marketing solutions.
DC: I saw that one of your hobbies is Scuba Diving. I’ve only been twice, and the first didn’t count since I heard the JAWS theme in my head 75% of the time and never really relaxed enough to enjoy the serenity of the experience. The second time I got it. If I were to attempt it a third time, where would you suggest I dive?
JS: This is really a ‘preference’ question as diving is very much a personal experience – a bit like digital printing really. There are many aspects of 
diving to choose from – sports diving or technical diving – and I enjoy sports diving. Then there is location. I enjoy the warm waters, although my UK English Channel experience was OK in 17 degree Celsius (62 degrees Fahrenheit) water because I went in search of fossilised sharks teeth and found quite a few dated at 49 million years. If it is warm waters then I would recommend the Maldives as you have a wide variety of dive sites for all standards of diver. Then you have type of dive site as a preference. For me the adventure of a wreck dive is awesome when you consider these goliath monuments were once active on the surface or in the air. Then you venture to the beauty of the corals and the array of tropic fish combined with the silence (relative) of being underwater in control of your own destiny and it is the ultimate life experience – with no communications technology to get in the way just simple hand signals.
DC: Are you using Social Media to promote your company or your services?
JS: Social media is another of those ‘generic terms’ which means something different to lots of people. We do not participate in Facebook or Twitter today simply because of the time it takes to effectively manage them. I am an avid participant with LinkedIn with a number of active groups which you could argue is business social media. I enjoy this form of communication as it keeps me in touch with people on a global basis and provide a channel to share ideas and thoughts. I will experience my first face-to-face LinkedIn event in December in London which is a novel idea to gather like-minded people in one place but driven by technology social media to reach out effectively.
DC: Lastly, if you were to give the commencement speech at Henley Management College, what would your message be regarding the future of workflow?
JS: I should be that lucky. I guess it would be along the lines of pay attention to customer data as this information is the life blood of any organisation today. Manage this right and create the system infrastructures to fully utilise the data to effectively communicate with customers as they choose not necessarily as you think benefits your business. Be as flexible and agile as possible with the channels of communication available to you with the technology at the time. The most important aspect of the B2C communication channel has to be ‘respecting you customers at all times’ because the same technology makes it so easy for them to exercise their choice.
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