Full Circle with Toppan Merrill

By Elizabeth Gooding / Published:

Some days it feels like the printing business is just a big small world. People you know keep turning up and it’s a constant reminder to treat everyone right because yesterday’s employee could be tomorrow’s client.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Mike Zimny who is the Vice President of US Operations at Toppan Merrill. When I last worked for them as a consultant, they were Merrill Corporation, and when I first worked with them, I was the consultant responsible for the outsourcing process for a  large international financial services client who was looking to consolidate their outsourcing relationships to reduce the number of suppliers used for transaction, direct mail and financial printing. As Paul Rudd famously said “Look at us. Who’d have thought? Not me.”

As it happens, a year or so after our large mutual client decided that Merrill was the right choice to take on a larger share of their print production, they also decided to more fully embrace print on demand for their retirement services materials. Along with the client, they decided that inkjet was the way to go, and I had the opportunity to work with them on the RFP process for selecting their second production inkjet press in 2013.

Mike and I spent a bit of time reminiscing about the justification for moving those client volumes to inkjet. “When we did the math, we needed to purchase 7 more iGens or …

Access to the full story requires membership. Not a member? Register here.

About the Author

Elizabeth Gooding

Twitter

Elizabeth is the Editor and Co-founder of Inkjet Insight. She has a rare ability to see print related issues from many perspectives. She has managed creative teams on complex design projects, selected outsourcers for major brands and helped print organizations to retool operations, focus their market positioning and educate sales teams to accelerate growth. She works with a team of top analysts to translate experiences into tools, data and content to help print organizations evaluate the potential of inkjet, optimize their operations and grow pages profitably. She is a founding member of the Inkjet Summit advisory board, the co-author of an award-winning book on designing for inkjet and a curious consultant constantly seeking innovative ways to drive new pages onto inkjet presses.

Leave a Comment