Companies have long looked at outsourcing as a cost reducer. It’s a leading reason why businesses choose to move some work to partners. Statement printing outsourcing is an area that more industries should consider. If you mail statements to customers and do it in-house, the costs are likely rising with no apparent delivery of value.
If you’re at crossroads of what to do with your mission-critical customer communications, you’ll appreciate this breakdown of why it doesn’t make fiscal sense to continue in your current model.
Statement Printing Isn’t a Core Competency
The industries that send regular statements—finance, healthcare, utilities, and telecom—aren’t experts in print and mail. While they know a lot about the accounting and remittance aspects of billing, the operational part of it is a blindside. Even if you have experts who run that part of your business, it will never be a core competency. Whereas professionals in the space have it down to a science that reduces costs, improves accuracy, and keeps you compliant.
Do You Know Your Real Statement Printing Costs?
While you may see the visible costs on the balance sheet from day to day, do you know the real cost of statement printing? It’s likely the true number is more elusive because the total expenses are not adequately captured.
Cost Categories for Statement Printing
Equipment
Equipment is a significant capital expense. However, it’s not a one-time payment. Sophisticated equipment requires regular maintenance, adding to the costs. Eventually, you have to update the equipment as the technology becomes obsolete. That’s a big budget line item to digest.
Materials
Statement printing requires paper, ink, toner, and more. You have to manage inventories and don’t have the buying power of a print house. These numbers fluctuate, too. The best approach is a white paper factory. The white paper factory production process merges digitally composed files, in-line print production, and intelligent insertion. It keeps inventory costs low and streamlines statement printing.
Labor
Those that work in your in-plant all come with a salary. Further, those numbers can fluctuate if you must calculate overtime. Outsourcing would eliminate these jobs; however, you can redistribute this labor to other areas that focus on your core competencies.
Energy
That pricey equipment consumes a lot of power. It’s not just the printers and mailing pieces. You also incur energy fees for backup systems.
Postage
Are you getting the best rate? Probably not because you’re not a postage expert. Print and mail companies are. They employ address management and presort automation, which lowers rates. They also can help companies optimize postage savings with strategies like optimizing envelope size.
What Did You Learn During COVID?
As your organization adjusted to the pandemic, did you have to shut down your in-plant? How did it impact customer communication printing? What you can say for sure is that if there were any disruptions, the costs didn’t disappear. If you look at the data from these events, it tells a story. Your expenses went up while your on-time delivery statistics likely plummeted. Both have costs associated with them.
Your costs of goods—equipment, materials, and labor—kept hitting your budget. With on-time delivery down, did it impact your cash flow? Evaluating these moments brings you closer to your statement printing operations’ real cost and how there’s a ripple effect.
How Has Your Digital Transformation Impacted Printing?
If you’re like many organizations, you’ve embarked on an initiative to transform your company digitally. You’ve probably offered customers ways to pay online and receive communications from you without printing and mailing. You may even have a goal to convert more of your customers to opt-in to paperless communications. Have you considered what impact that has on your in-house print operation? Lower volume means what’s left to print is more expensive per piece.
Outsourcing Statement Printing Does More than Save You Money
The bulk of this conversation has been about reducing costs, but there are more benefits you can realize from outsourcing.
- Improve accuracy in the process with advanced technology that mitigates against mis-mailings or other errors.
- Worry less about compliance by partnering with experts that understand and stay current with all regulations related to statements.
- Enhance customer personal data security by outsourcing to a company that has robust and layered cybersecurity and physical security practices.
- Customize statements to include relevant messaging to engage customers, which is much more effective than inserts.
Statement Printing No Longer Needs to Affect Your Bottom Line
By opting to outsource statement printing, you can decrease your costs in a time when almost every company needs to find savings. It doesn’t make fiscal sense to hold onto this old model. It’s time to find a better way to manage statements. With decades of experience and a 99.9999% accuracy rating, PCI Group can help. Experience our solutions today by scheduling a demo.
