The Old and The New Dot GPO's Top 50

CHAMBERSBURG, PA—Some established GPO vendors maintained their place in the latest list of the GPO's Top 50 volume producers.

Keeping the top spot was Montebello, CA-based Monarch Litho, which saw a 27 percent increase in its winnings to nearly $33 million. News Printing of Claysburg, PA, also increased its GPO volume and ranks again as the second-largest producer of printing for the federal government.

While familiar faces to this list are prevalent from top to bottom, there are always some new faces. Two examples: Colonial Press International, a commercial sheetfed printer in Miami, and Larco International, a laser imaging and mail house located in Cicero, IL, made the decision to enter the market only within the past year. These companies' successes show that it is very possible to build a substantial GPO account rather quickly.

Colonial Press has built a strong commercial business in South Florida. At the same time, as is the case with most commercial printers, unsold production capacity dotted its schedule and weakened efforts to achieve maximum profitability.

A decision was made to actively pursue GPO work. According to Jose Rodriguez, chief GPO estimator, Colonial accomplished two things that led to success in this market. First, it developed a team within the company that learned GPO procedures and paperwork. This team consisted of Rodriguez, who had some experience with GPO from a past employer; an account manager; an office person who receives and forwards bid invitations from the BidsPlus solicitation service; an employee in quality control; and another in bookkeeping.

"There were your normal growing pains that accompany any new endeavor," says Rodriguez, "but after a short time GPO business increased, jobs were processed through and team members got more aware of obligations.

"And, our staff found out that GPO personnel are delightful to work with and very helpful. That made the move into this market less intimidating, too."

Colonial also attacked the whole market and bid very actively on diverse jobs in order to find its niche. In order to accomplish this, the company would submit an average of four or five bids a day.

"We chose to work throughout the entire 21 office GPO system, quote on everything available that fit our capabilities, review the bid results provided by our service, and define where and with what printed products we could best find business," Rodriguez explains. "Since freight costs are normally not a factor in winning or losing work, it makes sense to match ourselves to all jobs that can run effectively on our equipment no matter which GPO office is doing the buying."

Colonial is building the GPO account to be 20 to 25 percent of its business, while relying on this work to generate additional income by ensuring that equipment time is sold and flowing the acquired dollars directly to the bottom line. In its first year in the GPO market, they have moved toward the head of the class in capturing their share of the federal printing pie.

Larco International's quick ascension to the GPO elite was made even swifter and differently from Colonial. A direct mail and laser imaging company, Larco looked to the high-end segment of the GPO market where each reward is of very substantial dollars.

Dave Dillon was the account rep who successfully lobbied company president Larry Scott to allow Larco staff to pursue available work from GPO. But, he did so only after the staff learned what to do to gain the work and successfully flow it through the business.

"Dave got key members of the production and data processing staff together, undertook some GPO training and found out what to do ahead of time," explains Scott. "I think we did the smart thing by allowing staff to find out what it needed to be successful in this market and then being aggressive in using these tools."

Dillon says that knowing how to handle major GPO contracts was especially important for them because many aspects of a mailing package must be subcontracted to printers.

"All the while, it is ultimately Larco's reputation with GPO that is at stake because we are the chief contractor on projects," says Dillon. "We had to get some assistance from our GPO solicitation service to ensure that contract compliance was being met."

Scott adds that GPO volume made sense because equipment capacity is always greater than Larco throughput.

"GPO has become a consistent and reliable client who could fill in that capacity and eliminate a lot of profit-draining downtime," he says. "Unlike many commercial customers who have no consistent schedule for their projects, GPO projects come out at a predictable time and allow us to more easily plan production."

Scott concludes that the relationship with GPO through their bid solicitation service has been the classic "win/win" situation and they hope to double their GPO volume in the next fiscal year.

In all, 543 vendors obtained $50,000 or more in work by taking advantage of GPO procurements to the private sector. These include some the largest companies in the United States down to small "mom-and-pop" shops.