Speaking at two recent conferences in Dubai and Turkey, I asked converter delegates if they considered themselves to be manufacturers of labels or service providers.
I was surprised at the result: over 90 percent gave their response as 'manufacturers'. If companies want to maintain profitability and grow, this must change.
In today's increasingly competitive environment, the art of producing high-quality labels is no longer sufficient to differentiate you from your competitors. The label converter must become a consultant to his customer - the end user - offering expertise and services such as lean manufacturing or environmentally sustainable processes.
There are many label converters in the industry today who are thriving thanks to increasing their focus on service instead of simply manufacturing. It helps them win business and increases their profitability. Surely, then, being a service provider is the way forward.
Roger Pellow
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The comments
what would a service provider be then? In this industry we focus on products not on services. After all, the customer wants a product and wants it as cheap as possible. They have been educated to do that and have never reflected on improving busines sprocesses in co-operation with their suppliers and look at Total Cost of Ownership rather than the price of a label.
I don’t think it is as easy to label oneself either a manufacturer or a service provider. There are many different degrees of label manufacturing and converting. Our company, for example, considers itself a “value-added converter” because we use our nearly 60 years of experience to help develop the right identification solution for a specific application – from the substrate material to the adhesive to the technology (human readable numbers, bar code and/or RFID). However, we wouldn’t consider ourselves a service provider because we do not offer the entire package – hardware, software etc. Instead we have an established network of integrators with whom we work with to be able to provide the total solution to the end user. We feel this enables us to provide the greatest amount of flexibility to our potential customers.
I would agree, we should think of ourselves more as service providers than manufacturers. Our customers know what products we can provide, they really don't care how we do it. They simply want a good product for a fair price AND they want and deserve excellent service. They want to know and experience that we have their best interest at heart, that we are here to serve them...not the product. While I will admit that whenever I complete a survey or prospective customer's application to become a vendor, I do feel it most closely identifies what I provide by labeling, (sorry for the pun), myself as a manufacturer. To me, if I was to say I provide a service for these surveys, it would not be specific enough for the reader to understand my line of work. Nevertheless, I agree with Roger's premise that we are all here to "serve" our customers, not "manufacture" for them. That's my $.02. Have a great day.