Organizations are always seeking to reduce expenses. For those that currently print and mail transactional documents, those are only rising. As a result, many businesses have decided that outsourcing is a better option. When customers transition their work to PCI Group, they can cut costs related to transactional print. In this episode of Ask the Experts, PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac explained how they do it.

“Companies move their work to PCI Group for two basic reasons. One is obviously to save money. It’s a very critical piece of the equation, with postage being a big component,” Chris said. 

In addition, stationary costs will decrease as well. Beyond reducing the numbers for stationery and postage, there are many other savings they realize. It occurs when applying best practices. “We want to make sure we’re doing it most efficiently. Each situation is different, but it has a lot to do with volume capacity. Since we do so much, we have our clients use common parts,” Chris noted.

These best practices can also include changing package types. Chris explained, “If you’re mailing anything nine by twelve, we might be able to convert that into a six by nine to save on stationery and postage costs.”

All these savings are great for any company’s operating budget. However, they never have to sacrifice quality, accuracy, or compliance obligations. Everything PCI Group does is transactional print, creating a secure and reliable process for customer jobs. 

Learn more by watching the video. 

One of the key reasons that businesses choose to transition from an in-plant to outsourcing is cost savings. The amount of capital needed to maintain and run these operations is becoming cost prohibitive. Even if volume declines, companies don’t see savings here, as the cost per piece actually increases. Outsourcing eliminates a lot of these immediately. PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac walked through these cost savings in the episode of Ask the Experts.

“The component of cost savings is the price per piece. In-plants have a fixed cost structure—plant property, equipment, people. Say you’re doing 100,000 pieces a month, and by electronic adoption, you go down to 75,000. In theory, you could save, but each piece now costs you more because you haven’t reduced these high costs,” Chris explained.

Moving to an outsource model clears the budget of these things. If the same scenario occurred in outsourcing, a business would truly save on the expenses of transactional print and mail. The prices stay the same at a per-piece rate. Companies reduce expenditures considerably through a provider’s ability to buy in high volume for materials. Also, those that practice Lean Manufacturing, like PCI, drive efficiency so that operations are optimal, eliminating waste that adds cost to the model.

In this second of a two-part conversation on Ask the Experts, PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac continued with recommendations for businesses. Choosing to outsource transactional print has many benefits. You can experience an increase in quality, accuracy, and efficiency when outsourcing. So, what else do you need to learn from them?

“Accuracy is the most important component in transactional mail. You may find the cheapest price around, but you’re going to have a lot of errors, and it’s going to cost you a lot more money. At PCI, we have a 99.9999% accuracy rate. How we do this is with technology, equipment, and Lean Manufacturing,” Chris explained.

Finding things in a vendor that demonstrate accuracy and quality is an essential line of questioning. Find out about their operations and quality management processes. PCI Group practices Lean Manufacturing and has numerous Six Sigma-accredited employees. Chris noted that this commitment has created a “culture of quality.”

The company also utilizes quality assurance versus quality control frameworks. Chris explained that quality control focuses on examining the results after production. At that point, the issue isn’t correctable. Quality assurance is about building quality into the product through standard works and ongoing audits of the processes. Because of this adherence to workflows, the company has a 99.6% pass rating on these audits.

Hear more questions to ask a potential outsourcing provider by watching the video.

When companies decide to outsource transactional print, they need to evaluate different vendors in the market. This assessment should include many questions relating to key things like processes, quality, accuracy, SLAs, etc. In this episode of Ask the Experts, PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac offered insights in part one of this discussion.

“When choosing a transactional partner, you should ask questions about how to handle certain events. One, what’s their sole focus? At PCI, we do 100% transactional mail. There are many companies that do 50% direct mail or marketing mail and 50% transactional. While they may be great, they don’t have that sole focus,” Chris said.

The next area of questions that Chris recommended revolved around technology. “What type of technology do they use to complete the process? At PCI, we have a full chain of custody, so we track all the way through the print process, insertion process, and into the mail stream. We add a barcode to every sheet of paper we print to use intelligent insertion with a data file or MRDF file, basically an index, to make sure the proper sheets go into the envelope.”

Another crucial element businesses should demand from a transactional print provider is a portal that’s a single source of truth and information on your jobs. “Make sure your vendor has an online portal that reports information to you in real time or near real time. We have trakPCI, and it’s been in place for 25 years. You can look online and see where your job is in the stream,” Chris relayed.

Organizations also need to inquire about compliance and security. Chris advised companies to ask about SOC I & II, HIPAA, HITRUST, and PCI DSS, at the least. Earning and maintaining these certifications, as PCI does, offer the safeguards required for compliance and security. The conversation continued with part two of this episode.

The paper market has been unpredictable for the past few years. It began during 2020 as a consequence of lockdowns and changing needs in paper products. While the pandemic is over, the industry is still recovering. In this episode of Ask the Experts, PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac shared insights on paper market trends in 2023 and beyond.

“The paper market has been very volatile with unprecedented increases that we’ve ever seen. I’ve been in the industry 35 years, and I haven’t seen increases like these happen,” Chris said.

With higher costs, many companies have had challenges in maintaining the paper they need for print and mail, but PCI Group has checks and balances in place to continue to benefit from its ability to buy in bulk and have guaranteed quantity. “We have been fortunate because our philosophy and business use standard components and have not had any shortages,” Chris added.

The paper market may achieve greater stability in the future. “In 2023, I think another two to three increases, then it will stabilize more at the end of the year. We know right now, there’s a start to open up some more capacity,” Chris noted.

No matter the up-and-down nature of the paper market, PCI Group has strategies and policies in place to ensure they have the materials they need to deliver customer jobs with high quality and accuracy.

Transitioning from in-plant operations to outsourcing for print and mail can be challenging if the provider has little experience. PCI Group has successfully facilitated many of these projects through careful planning and development of best practices. In this episode of Ask the Experts, President and Owner Chris Kropac explained how the company has the process perfected.

“The best practice for transition for PCI is what we call lift and shift. What we have to do is make sure all the procedures are documented for what you’re doing now. Most of the time, they aren’t, so we want to take the work the way it is, lift it into our facility, and shift it to get it stable,” Chris said.

The best practices defined by the company follow a green-yellow-red theory. “We take all your jobs, streams, or trails on a spreadsheet. We put the components that look at all the policies and procedures, and we want to automate as much as possible, which is normally about 95% of your jobs.”

The shift to automation requires PCI Group to prioritize and rank processes based on their ability to fall into the category. “We rank them green, yellow, or red. Green needs very little human intervention. Yellow needs minimal work to be green. Red jobs are the most complex,” Chris noted.

Many companies in various industries still run in-plant operations related to their transactional print and mail. As a result, they have capital and operating expenses associated with production. Rising material, labor, and technology costs are making it cost prohibitive. To ease these burdens, organizations are transitioning from the in-plant model to outsourcing. In this episode of Ask the Experts, PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac spoke about the challenges businesses face with this change.

“It’s really the whole move itself. We employ a lift and shift model. We try to take the work as it’s currently done and do it the exact same way. We lift it to bring it to our facility, gain control of it, and then apply best practices,” Chris explained.

PCI Group completes a complete assessment of current processes to identify opportunities to level up to best practices. “Things change over time, and if you don’t update your procedures fully, there may be something that’s not 100% complete. So, we actually hire our client’s employees for a short time to work in our facility or send our employees into their in-plants to learn the process,” Chris said.

While outsourcing moves the production of print and mail, organizations don’t lose control of it. “Clients think they’ll lose control by outsourcing, but we act as your outsourced print department, and you have a direct connection to our production teams. We make sure that your job is done correctly and on time all the time,” Chris added.

Transitioning in-plant operations is an area where PCI Group has deep experience and knowledge. When customers outsource, they reduce costs, improve accuracy, enhance compliance, and maintain high quality. Learn more about the process by watching the video.

Benefits of Having a Managed Print Service Provider

Managing a company’s printing requires a lot of resources and expenses. Using an in-plant to print and mail customer communications can be daunting, and many have transitioned and partnered with a managed print service provider. As a result, they’ve realized many benefits. Find out what those are in this episode of Ask the Experts, featuring PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac.

“There are many benefits of working with a transactional print and mail partner for managed print services. One is the specialization in this area. Everything we do is in the transactional space, so security and compliance are always present,” Chris explained.

Another advantage is the buying power of companies like PCI Group compared to that of individual businesses. “We reduce costs in stationery and processing,” Chris said.

Other areas in which managed print service providers excel are accuracy and compliance. “It’s much greater than what someone can do on their own, especially in the in-plant environment. We’ve adopted Lean Manufacturing to produce a lot of mail with very few mistakes. We take operating procedures and break them down into standard works to get better accuracy,” Chris commented.

When outsourcing transactional print and mail with managed services, organizations yield benefits in every area—decreased costs, increased quality and accuracy, and improved compliance. Learn more about these by watching the video.

Lots of companies say they are easy to do business with, as it translates to an organization being a great partner. But what does it mean in outsourcing transactional print and mail? PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac answered the question in this episode of Ask the Experts.

There are many reasons why PCI Group is easy to do business with, illustrated by the company’s longevity and long relationships with customers. “We perform, and we’ve built a great team. Your team will have access to everything that they need. We’ve developed trakPCI system that allows 24-7 access to their full account,” Chris said.

Along with easy access to information about jobs, mail tracking, and more in trakPCI, customers also have a dedicated implementation team and customer success representative. Customers can get in touch with their contacts at any time. “We answer calls. If you call us, we’ll get right back to you. We put a team together to help the client whatever the issue is,” Chris noted.

Backing all this up is compliance, security, and accuracy, which keeps jobs on time, correct, and secure. PCI Group develops relationships with its clients, understands their business, and offers best practices to improve operations and reduce costs. Learn more by watching the video.

When companies choose to outsource their communications, they have many vendors available. In the world of transactional direct mail, organizations should pursue relationships with those with a singular focus on this type of print and mail. It provides many advantages, which PCI Group President and Owner Chris Kropac detailed in this episode of Ask the Experts.

“At PCI, 100% of the work we do is transactional direct mail. Other companies in the industry do 50% direct mail, that’s marketing mail, and 50% transactional. Every single document we touch is transactional,” Chris said.

As a result of this singular focus, PCI Group has the best technology, processes, and people in place to deliver highly accurate mailings every time. In addition, the quality is consistent, and there is less risk related to compliance adherence. To excel in this category of mailings, organizations must develop, refine, and audit the processes on a regular basis.

“In every procedure inside our facilities, our operations, from the ingestion of the file to the printing and inserting, are able to handle critical confidential documents. It’s a key component of why we’re able to process so much work with a 99.9999% accuracy rating,” Chris relayed.

Find out more about PCI Group’s transactional direct mail operations by watching the video.