Fall 2010 business realThe Xerox magazine for real business results Social Media: Buffalo Bills A New Way Game Plan of Connecting Includes Xerox With Customers Color Your Office Green! Marriott Transforms Finance Key Processes 2010 Buffalo Bills Edition realbusiness · 1 Welcome Bills Fans! Xerox is proud to join you here at Ralph Wilson Stadium for the 51st season of Buffalo Bills football. This year, a relatively young team led by new coach Chan Gailey looks to surprise the AFC East and the entire league with resilience and a dynamic, productive offense. After some impressive pre-season outings…watch out. Of course, Xerox is helping the Bills’ front office be more productive with smooth, efficient document solutions that make it easy to focus on what matters most—football. Check out the article on pages 8-9. Thank you for being our guest today. With tens of thousands of passionate fans cheering in the stands on home Sundays, events like this keep us connected and inspired—so we can tackle the real business challenges we face every day. Go Bills! Best, Ursula M. Burns Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Xerox Corporation 2 · realbusiness 2010 Buffalo Bills Edition realbusiness Table of Contents Features 02 Letter from Ursula Burns 10 Color Your Office Green Sustainability has never been easier to achieve 04 Traditional Offset to High-Value Color Variable Printing 12 How Marriott International, Inc. Transformed key finance processes 06 Social Media A new way of connecting with customers 14 Marriott, Target and Proctor & Gamble are Ready for Real Business 08 The Buffalo Bills Game Plan Includes Xerox Printed on a Xerox Digital Production Press using genuine Xerox supplies. Send comments or suggestions for RealBusiness Magazine to: [email protected] ©2010 Xerox Corporation. All rights reserved. XEROX® and XEROX and Design® are trademarks of Xerox Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. 2010 Buffalo Bills Edition realbusiness · 3 Making the Transition From Traditional Offset to High-Value Color Variable Printing Progressive Communications applies Xerox’s digital technology and business development tools and services to build a high-growth, one-to-one marketing business ... by Gina Testa The highest value print work Seeking “More Bang for the Buck” usually involves variable Like many traditional printers, by mid decade information, yet less than 10 Progressive felt the economic pinch. “Our customers percent of all digital printing is were cutting their marketing budgets, print runs variable, according to Rochester and mailings,” said Gabe Hernandez, general Institute of Technology Professor manager, Progressive Communications. “We wanted Emeritus Frank Romano. something that could give us more bang for our Progressive Communications, buck, so we started looking at digital printing.” based near Orlando, Fla., is Gabe Hernandez It wasn’t the first time Progressive explored new General Manager, bucking that trend. In a little more directions. Founded in 1975 as a newsletter than two years after initiating Progressive Communications production company, the firm evolved into a digital color printing, more than commercial printer and became a full-service print, 85 percent of the firm’s 1-million-plus monthly digital fulfillment, direct marketing and multimedia color pages were variable. Here’s how they made the design operation with two 2002 acquisitions. leap so quickly. Today, Progressive has 220 employees and is a division of printing and marketing services company Taylor Corporation. Their digital color exploration began with the 2007 acquisition of a Xerox® DocuColor® 242 Digital Color 4 · realbusiness 2010 Buffalo Bills Edition Printer/Copier. “We responded to the opportunity in partnership with Xerox, because we want to be more than ink on paper,” Hernandez said. “We want to provide solutions to our customers to help them increase their sales.” Progressive already had many of the skills required for digital color variable information success. A 12-member design department regularly wins awards for direct marketing and promotional pieces, and Progressive’s data team routinely programmed basic black-and-white personalization. By adding a person experienced in Xerox’s XMPie software, the firm could execute a wide range of personalized direct marketing programs. Tapping into Xerox Business Development Support For help in selling and marketing the new services, Progressive turned to Mickey Call, Xerox Business Progressive Communications conducted a cross-media Development Consultant. He provided three months campaign that generated a 17 percent response rate and of consultative sales training and helped develop earned them a Best of the Best Award. a marketing plan using the Xerox® Marketing Accelerator Kit. “Initially we thought we would just do short-run, To ease entry into the somewhat recession-proof quick-turn static work,” Hernandez said. “But since healthcare and education markets they targeted, we had the ability to produce truly personalized pieces that get better results, we said, ‘Let’s go for Progressive used the Xerox® ProfitAccelerator® it.’ We discovered that many of our customers were vertical market kits and landed several new clients. gathering data on their customers’ demographics And they referenced the Xerox® ProfitAccelerator but weren’t using it—until we helped them.” Open House Kit to plan ongoing “Summer School” educational seminars, promoting its services to Digital color has driven growth at Progressive in two prospects and clients. ways. First, while offset has slipped from 95 percent of the shop’s print volume three years ago to Progressive also regularly runs self-promotion 80 percent today, digital has grown to 20 percent, campaigns. A recent multi-touch effort used a about half of it from new clients. In addition, digital PURL to offer a calendar with images incorporating drives more work in other Progressive divisions. the prospect’s name in exchange for filling out a Some 95 percent of digital jobs use Progressive questionnaire on their marketing needs. Results mailing services compared to 50 percent with included a 17 percent response rate, a 68 percent offset, and 80 percent are designed by Progressive’s conversion rate, more than 20 one-off jobs and creative team, compared to 25 percent with offset. several ongoing communications programs. One By 2015, Hernandez believes that half of other result: it won the Best Overall Solution Award Progressive’s business will be color variable printing, in the 2010 Xerox Best-of-the-Best contest. in which case, Progressive is not just bucking a trend; it is leading one. Focus on Personalization Gina Testa is vice president, With so much preparation, Progressive quickly grew Graphic Communications Industry, its digital color business. In just six months, they Xerox Corporation, [email protected]. needed a larger press and acquired a Xerox® iGen3® 110 Digital Production Press. A year later, they added a second, and subsequently upgraded both to Xerox® iGen4® Presses. 2010 Buffalo Bills Edition realbusiness · 5 Social Media: A New Way of Connecting with Customers ... by Michael Wooden The advent of Web 2.0 and the explosion of social The Customer Takes the Reins media applications that followed have led to a Prior to the 21st century, the dialog between business fundamental shift in power between companies and and customer was really more of a monolog, with the customers. With wikis, blogs, online communities and business doing most of the talking via advertising and social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter marketing. Sure, customers could provide feedback about proliferating, consumers are finding their voice and products or services—but it was rarely immediate. And sharing their opinions any way they can—rating and while their viewpoints may have reached the ears of reviewing products, services and companies; talking company representatives, they almost certainly weren’t about brands and companies in communities of reaching those of other customers (or prospective interest; and more. customers). 6 · realbusiness 2010 Buffalo Bills Edition Suddenly, that monolog has become a dialog, and with Social Media Revolution. You’re in. 78 percent of consumers reporting that they trust the Now what? opinions of their peers more than all other information sources and advertising (according to a 2008 study by With almost 74 percent of consumers choosing brands the Nielson Co.), companies that do not find ways to based on the customer experiences their peers share 1 listen to, join in, steer and learn from these customer- online, it’s clear that there are huge benefits to be controlled conversations through well-implemented gained from using social media to enhance customer social media strategies risk losing their customers and experience and extend brand reach and value. It’s also prospects to those that do. clear, however, that there are considerable challenges involved in doing so. Although the prospect of entering the social media waters can be daunting—after all, businesses can’t ACS can help. As a leader in business process control what people say about their brands in cyber outsourcing and business technology innovation, ACS space—companies that turn their backs on the has the experience and expertise required to guide phenomenon are likely to be left in the dust by organizations’ social media efforts. By engaging ACS to their more savvy competitors. For proof, consider help implement a social media strategy and integrate