NPES Ultimate Goal: Print Industry Growth

NPES - The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies (Booth 3255) has embarked in a bold new direction with its 2017-2020 Strategic Business Plan—for The Industry. Centered around two priority focus areas, the over-arching goals of the three-year roadmap are to:

• Convene, lead, and drive the global printing & imaging value chain toward operational excellence, and
• Position and engage the global printing & imaging industry for growth throughout the value chain.

NPES’s new direction is driven by data gathered from the Association’s outreach to more than 13,000 industry stakeholders—OEMs, printers, and others—who shared their “what keeps me up at night” issues, industry leader telephone interviews, and professionally facilitated strategic planning sessions with NPES Board members and staff.

“This is a defining moment not just for NPES, but for the entire industry,” states NPES President Thayer Long. “Through the data obtained in the planning process, NPES learned that to effectively engage, advance, and grow our industry, the value chain must be aligned and working together in lockstep. NPES’s strategic vision, developed by and for our industry, offers a guiding blueprint for all industry stakeholders to achieve success through alignment, which is critical for sustained industry growth,” he continued. 

To advance the plan, Advisory Groups comprised of industry stakeholders from across the value chain are currently developing initiatives within the six key “pillars” of the plan, titled:

1. Research: to provide actionable data for immediate implementation for the Industry’s value chain
2. Facilitate: as “master collaborator,” convene the value chain in interactive industry events to conduct Education, Business Networking, and Commerce
3. Advocate: engage the value chain to leverage advocacy and drive favorable business outcomes for The Industry
4. Brand: the Association as the heart of “The Industry” for all members of the value chain
5. Expand: new opportunities for Industry Research, Global Trade, Business Development and position and promote the Industry into markets of opportunity through global channel development, and
6. Train: by serving as the Industry’s education distribution channel and workforce development agent.

Recent developments inspired by the new NPES Strategic Plan for the Industry include:

• A new industry partnership with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council—to deepen the collaboration between brands and supply chain partners. Visit the new jointly developed online resource, the Brand Inspiration Center (www.brandinspiration.org), and check out the lineup for the also new NPES 2017 Annual Conference and Brand Inspiration Forum (www.NPES.org/AnnConf);
• An expanded partnership with VDMA, NPES’s German counterpart, that will produce a variety of initiatives and events in the areas of industry market data and international conferences;
• A new market data program (an NPES “Members-only” exclusive), designed by Dr. Joe Webb, to be a fast, easy, and actionable resource to determine current industry status and pinpoint future opportunities at a national, state, and local level; plus,
• Currently underway as well are initiatives aimed at rebranding the Association—to reflect its new focus and direction, and a complete website rebuild—to effectively showcase the variety of information, activities and resources available through the NPES-managed family of organizations.

Looking ahead, “Our measurement of success will not be by how many members we obtain, or how large our events are, but instead, we will begin to measure the industry value chain alignment,” says NPES Chairman Mal Baboyian, Executive VP LFS/PPS, Canon Solutions America, Inc. (Booth 1213).

Visit the NPES booth—or NPES Global Executive Lounge (Room N427abcd), reserved exclusively for NPES Members and International Show Visitors—to learn more about NPES’s new roadmap designed to align the print value chain for sustained Industry growth.