Cadmus--One-stop Communications Shop

Cadmus is at it again—changing the industry, breaking all the rules. And it's enjoying the infraction.

"We're violating the old taboos of printing," says Steve Gillispie, Cadmus chairman, president and CEO. "Printers don't help you market. Printers don't help you create. But Cadmus isn't just a printer. Cadmus is a unique kind of communications company. We're creating, producing and distributing the entire communications message in one unmatched outsource solution."

With the power of several business units all operating under one corporate umbrella, Cadmus is literally a one-stop communications shop.

"This is where the future is headed," adds Steve Isaac, executive vice president of the Marketing Communications sector. "We've been investing in this concept for years. We've collected unique capabilities that enable us to create, produce and distribute, and we're the first to migrate this way. We're reinventing how communications services are delivered."

One of Cadmus' two sectors, Cadmus Journal Services, has been extremely successful in providing end-to-end services for journal and magazine publishers for decades. In fact, that's how this business grew to be a world leader for scientific, medical and technical journals.

Building on this success, Cadmus is now moving forward with a similar model for its Marketing Communications sector. For established companies, that could mean several things. Cadmus could serve as the printing arm of the business, eliminating multiple outside vendors and the potential problems involving each. Cadmus could also overhaul a product or corporate image by creating and promoting a new market identity. Or, Cadmus could provide a range of marketing, advertising, printing, packaging and fulfillment services, or a combination thereof.

"Create—Produce—Distribute" is the Cadmus business model. To Cadmus, "create" means either developing composed pages provided by publishers or developing corporate marketing messages from the ground up. Providing end-to-end communications solutions is the Cadmus way of doing business.

For start-up companies, Cadmus can fulfill the complete communications need. Take Intelos, a new provider of wireless telephone services. In the "create" mode, Cadmus developed the company's brand identity (a wireless phone "like a phone away from home"), created a logo and ad campaign around the new identity, managed media placement, designed the packaging and developed a supportive direct mail campaign. In the "produce" mode, Cadmus printed the business packages and provided point-of-purchase (POP) materials. In the "distribute" mode, Cadmus will set up a customer service program and process orders for the packaging and POP materials.

From Concept to Beyond
Intelos went in with an idea for a product and came out with a corporate identity and an accompanying full-scale marketing plan. That's the power of fully integrated, end-to-end communications. That's the power of Cadmus, its execs contend.

As a radically new kind of communications company, Cadmus is investing heavily in spreading the word about its revolutionary services. The company believes it's on to something big, and considering its client base—which includes Hardee's, Bloomingdales, FedEx and Radio Shack (to name a few)—Cadmus has real potential to make this new concept fly.

What Cadmus is on to is the linked future of printing and marketing—an idea so revolutionary, the migration of thinking to buy into the concept remains to be seen.

Cadmus intends to quicken the pace of customer acceptance by demonstrating personally the magnitude—as well as the potential success—of its services. By using itself as an example, Cadmus has taken its entire corporation (3,000 employees at 14 facilities) through the total information-integration process it's trying to sell.

"We didn't want to be the cobbler's children, so we did our own brand identity study," reveals Isaac. "We asked our associates [employees] and customers what they think of Cadmus and what message it conveys. Most people said Cadmus is seen as a company that is responsive to its customers' needs and innovative in its solutions to customers' communications problems. They said we go the distance in helping them excel.

"So we're taking a new message to the public," adds Isaac. "We're developing a tag line that will convey to the public what our company stands for and what customers can expect to get from us."

In the same way it would pool its resources to communicate a client's message, Cadmus will promote its new brand identity through its own end-to-end services. This fall, Cadmus will launch a national marketing campaign built around this newly created identity.

No doubt printers and marketing agencies will start seeing and hearing more of the "new and improved" Cadmus, but Gillispie says Cadmus doesn't pose a serious threat to competitors.

A Big Piece of Pie
"The pie is so big," Gillispie contends, "that we believe there's a piece for everyone. In fact, we often work as partners with ad agencies. The key is that not everyone will have to use the full complement of our capabilities for Cadmus to prosper. Some customers may buy a la carte and gradually increase the items they choose. Others will want it all at the beginning."

Cadmus plans to capture the market interested in one-stop communications shopping.

"Corporations and associations are looking to outsource in one place," says Gillispie, who cites real examples of corporations and not-for-profits that previously dealt with dozens of vendors involved in the process. "We're providing the complete outsourcing solution."

Imagine: No more explaining the company's mission or needs to every vendor, no more dealing with multiple vendors, no more vendor finger-pointing when something goes wrong, no more payments for multiple invoices and no more format conversions for data. When a customer considers the advantages of one-source outsourcing, it's a powerful proposition.

Single-source outsourcing also provides consolidation in buying—the more services from a single source, the less expensive the overall process. And there's greater consistency—the same color, resolution and quality from logo to large-format advertisements.

As a one-stop communications shop, Cadmus intends to give new meaning to the phrase "added value."

Building Partnerships
"By creating products and services that provide real value, we want our customers to become dependent on us, to need us. We want to be mission-critical," says Dave Wilson, executive vice president and CEO of Cadmus Journal Services. "To do this, we have to know a customer's business as well as it does. As experts in their business, they'll rely on us to provide value—to be proactive in service delivery and proactive in bringing real solutions to their business challenges."

The Journal Services' "Total Digital Pathway" concept illustrates this proactive stance. Cadmus provides customers with a "publishing system" that ends in data-based content, which can be spun in different directions—whether that means print, CD-ROMs, online information, reprints or the like. Not only can the group provide this total linked system, it can provide everything all under one roof.

On the Marketing Communications side of the business, Hardee's has learned the extent to which Cadmus strives to know a customer's business. As the printing arm of this national fast-food chain, Cadmus installed a toll-free number (at Cadmus); a store manager can call and order any printed material, from promotions to POP displays.

Cadmus also maintains an active, updated database that includes display information about windows, counters and floor space for individual stores. The order is processed and shipped directly from Cadmus to Hardee's locations nationwide.

A printer servicing an account like a business partnership? That's the type of relationship Cadmus is developing with clients. Likewise, the publicly held printer is continually developing and refining critical relationships with shareholders.

Attempting to break away from its traditional role as a printer/publisher, the company set out to reinvent the industry in 1992 when former Chairman Wallace Stettinius relinquished the helm to current President and CEO Gillispie.

Under the direction of its new captain, Cadmus set its sights on the future with the high hopes (and even higher aspirations) of becoming the first "fully integrated, end-to-end communications company." The Cadmus crew admittedly took a few wrong turns at first, and the subsequent undercurrents forced the company to stray from its carefully constructed course.

Taking a radical risk and learning lessons the hard way (financially), Cadmus sold components, changed management and rearranged its corporate structure.

After narrowing the number and scope of the businesses in which it competed, Cadmus aggressively refocused and redefined its strategy. This decision proved to strengthen its existing strongholds in the journal services and marketing communications arenas.

After much trial and tribulation, during which shareholders stuck through thick and thin, Cadmus is now expecting a 42-percent increase in year-to-year earnings, with last year's sales reaching $385 million. The company is also rapidly approaching its long-term goals of 15-percent internal growth, 10-percent operating margins and 20-percent return on capital.

Full Speed Ahead
Now, shareholders are starting to realize a return on their loyalty. Cadmus is back on course, aiming full speed ahead to its 21st century destination: total information integration, focused on the company's two specific market sectors. Journal Services provides products and services that relay critical information and advance knowledge, while Marketing Communications delivers products and services that convey a message about a product, service or corporation.

Under Cadmus Journal Services, the company focuses on four niche markets: commercial journals; not-for-profit journals for trade associations; commercial magazines; and not-for-profit magazines for trade associations. Cadmus, reportedly the world's largest publisher of scientific, technical and medical journals, achieved its position by buying competitors Waverly Press and Lancaster Press. The acquisitions gave Cadmus more than a 25-percent market share.

Under Cadmus Marketing Communications, there are six business units: Financial Communications; Packaging and Promotion; CadmusCom (marketing/communications); Point-of-Purchase; Graphic Solutions; and Technology Solutions. Additionally, under CadmusCom, there are four sub-units: Identity Marketing; Custom Publishing;

3-Score (catalog design and production); and Cadmus Direct (direct response marketing).

Each sector—as well as each business unit—has the ability to create, produce and distribute. By pooling the resources of each unit, the integration of services provides the "innovative solution."

"We saw that customers wanted and needed a fully integrated, end-to-end service," notes Gillispie. "In fact, they were anxiously awaiting its arrival."

Now that the integration has arrived, Cadmus is creating value with products and services that help clients attract more business.

"Our true mission is to help our customers find, grow and retain new customers, and better serve existing ones," adds Wilson. "We're always asking, 'What can we do more effectively?' The answers help us to be proactive in bringing real solutions to customers' problems."

Providing real solutions, such as helping customers build their client bases, is a critical ingredient of business success—especially in the graphic arts industry. Cadmus believes this essential element is being overlooked, and the company intends to cash in on the void.

"Many printers are focused on being the low-cost supplier. They have that 'we're going to save you money' mentality," contends Gillispie. "But no one built a great organization just saving money. Great organizations are built by adding customers. Cadmus has developed a 'we're going to help you get more customers' mentality. We're leveraging our skills, bringing more clout to our customers because we've linked our assets."

By combining assets to provide a fully integrated information package, Cadmus believes it is reinventing the communications industry. And as Cadmus knows, breaking the rules often gives birth to invention.

—Cheryl A. Adams

Acquisition Strengthens Hold
In $12 Billion POP Market

Cadmus Communications recently announced its acquisition of Germersheim, an Atlanta-based national point-of-purchase (POP) marketing services provider, best known for its large-format beverage industry displays. When Germersheim merges with Cadmus Marketing Services, Cadmus' existing POP operation, the combined annual sales in POP marketing will be approximately $47 million, reportedly making Cadmus the leading POP provider in the Southeast.

Together, the two operations will offer creative promotional concepts and designs, a full range of production capabilities for merchandising, and a sophisticated distribution and fulfillment service, which includes maintaining an active POP database for each client's location.

"This transaction is an important next step in the execution of our strategy to offer unmatched, fully integrated services," says Steve Gillispie, Cadmus' chairman, president and CEO. "Cadmus is an effective consolidator in select niche markets. This acquisition solidifies our position in the powerful POP market, particularly as it relates to meeting the needs of quick service restaurant and beverage clients."

Total information integration, a 21st century destination, is now underway, courtesy of Cadmus. Pictured (from the left) are: Dave Wilson, executive vice president; Steve Gillispie, chairman and CEO; Bruce Thomas, CFO and senior vice president; and Steve Isaac, executive vice president.