What Hotel Operators Should Know About Print Management

By Steve Pinetti, Sr. VP Sales & Marketing, Kimpton Hotels

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. August 25, 2010

Mr. Steve Pinetti

During the past few years hotels have been focused on cutting costs in order to maximize the bottom line during the recession - everything from trimming staff to slashing marketing budgets. But some hotel companies, including the one I work for, Kimpton Hotels, are also pursuing another strategy that not only drives additional cost savings, but also benefits the company in many other ways: outsourced print procurement, also known as print management.

According to industry analysts print is a top spend category at most organizations. But because it is decentralized across departments it is difficult to measure. Indeed most companies cannot accurately tell you how much they actually spend on print. Due to this lack of visibility print has largely flown under the radar of management.

But today more and more organizations - including hotels - are turning to print management firms to centralize and leverage their print spend and drive both hard and soft dollar savings across their print supply chains. Just as other functions like HR, Payroll, and IT have been outsourced for many years, print procurement has emerged as another area that is ideal for outsourcing.

Print: A Fractured Industry

There are 36,000 printers in the U.S. today. Most are small, regional companies with a limited number of printing presses and hence, capabilities. Yet most printers will take any job they can get so client projects are often run on sub-optimal equipment. At the same time there is a large amount of excess capacity in the marketplace, usually between 30 and 40 percent at any given time, so price discrimination is rampant. In short the industry is terribly inefficient and as a result, buyers of print are at a disadvantage and more often than not, they end up over-paying. Given the dynamics of the print industry a new model was bound to emerge. Enter print management.

What is Print Management?

The general perception in the business community is that there are two ways to buy print - either direct from a print manufacturer or via a print broker. And until recently this has largely been true. Corporate print buyers and marketing managers usually work with a handful of local suppliers to bid out individual projects. But this process provides very little visibility into the larger marketplace and causes buyers to make under-informed decisions that result in over-paying.

Print management is an approach that utilizes advanced technology and huge databases of industry and pricing information to enable informed, intelligent buying, which drives significant savings. Print management firms are also domain experts and, in many cases, are able to help re-engineer their clients' existing printed materials and bring new, creative ideas to the table. Furthermore, print management firms enable clients to increase the control and consistency of their brand, which can be an especially challenging task for geographically diverse organizations like hotel chains.

Here at Kimpton we work with InnerWorkings, the leading print management provider in the U.S. InnerWorkings' sole focus is the sourcing, procurement and management of printed materials for its clients. They are experts in more than 60 product categories, including everything from direct mail to packaging, promotional products and plastic cards. The company has developed a technology driven methodology for sourcing and producing print that is far more efficient and effective than what was previously possible.

Case Study: Kimpton Drives Savings and Value via Print Management from InnerWorkings

The Kimpton Group operates 50 hotels and 52 restaurants in 23 different cities and historically each location managed their own print needs (e.g. brochures, menus, door hangers, statements, promotional products, etc.). As an organization we weren't leveraging the collective spend across all of our properties and our print supply chain was disparate and costly.

A few years ago we kicked off a company wide effort to consolidate purchasing across all categories of spend. Shortly thereafter we were introduced to InnerWorkings as a potential partner for print. InnerWorkings spent a lot of time and effort really learning our business and our specific challenges with respect to print. They traveled to every Kimpton location, met with management and did a company-wide cost assessment that quantified the savings we could realize through collective buying. They showed us how a programmatic approach to our buying - such as purchasing everything at once on a quarterly basis vs. ad hoc - could help reduce costs even further. Ultimately they provided a solution created specifically for Kimpton and have managed the program flawlessly.

Value Add

An integral part of the Kimpton brand is the company's focus and commitment to environmental concerns. One might think this would pose a problem for a print management firm like InnerWorkings, but in fact they made our environmental focus part and parcel of the program and as a result we've been able to drive our environmental initiatives to even greater heights.

Today, every single piece of paper we use is recycled and every drop of ink is soy based. These requirements were built right into the program, and InnerWorkings not only found suppliers that could meet these requirements but also at a far lower cost than we had been paying. They continuously seek out new materials and present us new ideas and truly act as an extension of our marketing team.

Our print program with InnerWorkings then led to promotional products and they are now the sole provider of promo items across the organization as well. And again, the program adheres to Kimpton's stringent environmental requirements. Not only does InnerWorkings strategically source these products for us but they proactively bring us ideas for new materials, new suppliers and further cost reduction opportunities.

For example, InnerWorkings discovered a recycled pen solution for us and presented us with the opportunity to move to a 100% biodegradable key card. We were among the first hotel groups to roll out this type of key card and it further validated Kimpton as a thought leader and innovator in the industry. These types of products align with our company values and they underscore how InnerWorkings is much more of a proactive partner to Kimpton vs. a vendor.

Now with InnerWorkings we have a single source provider for print and promotional products for all of the properties within the Kimpton Group. And through InnerWorkings we have access to a network of certified suppliers capable of producing our very specific products at the highest quality and lowest possible cost. InnerWorkings also built and deployed an online ordering system (e-store) so individual hotel operators can quickly and easily order and fulfill any item that they require.

Now that we are in pooling our spend not just among all of the Kimpton properties but also with the $400M+ in collective buying power across all of InnerWorkings we have seen dramatic savings - up to 25% in many cases - in addition to the tremendous service and products.

In sum, print management is worth a look whether you are a sole proprietor or an international hotel chain and based on our experience InnerWorkings is certainly the best in the business.

To learn more about InnerWorkings, visit www.inwk.com or contact Jim Carini, Vice President of Marketing at 312-642-3700.

Steve Pinetti is Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. Mr. Pinetti oversees sales, marketing, advertising, public relations and commerce activities for the hotel and restaurant management company. Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, based in San Francisco, currently manages 50 hotels and 52 restaurants in 23 different cities in the U.S. and Canada. Throughout his career, Mr. Pinetti has been responsible for the strategic planning and openings of more than 50 hotels restaurants throughout the country. He has taught business classes at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, San Francisco City College and Golden Gate University.