Digital and Printing North London

Why wouldn't a print broker's suppliers approach a customer directly?

Because they don't have dedicated sales people and employ printing management companies in that function. From a print manager or broker's point of view, if any of their suppliers were to adopt such a practice, they would deny themselves the other leads which might otherwise be introduced to them.

Who is responsible for "managed" printing?

The print management company are: even though they're print managers - middle men - the buck has to stop somewhere and as far as the customer is concerned, that buck stops with the service provider. Otherwise customers may as well deal directly with the manager or broker's suppliers and for reasons given above, they really don't want to do that. Brokers provide a complete managed print service, which extends to total responsibility for customers' printing: they can approve proofs on-press, so that customers don't have to; advise on pre-flighting customer files and are ultimately responsible for their customers' printing and all that's entailed therein.

Why would a customer deal with a broker and not a "traditional" printing company?

Because print managers and brokers represent a one-stop solution for all of a customer's printing needs. Rather than shop around many printers for the best deal and most appropriate production medium, print brokers do that for their customers.Print Brokers are a Business Process Out-sourced complete print procurement solution. Print Brokers act as an out-sourced sales solution to trade-only suppliers. Those suppliers maintain low overheads by - among other means - not employing dedicated sales staff of their own: they out-source sales on a part-time basis to Print Brokers. Print Brokers then represent a "collective" of printers, who together offer a complete print solution.

Traditionally, print buyers would buy - for example - business cards from one supplier, brochures from another and large-format graphics from yet another. To free up their customers' resources and save them having to shop around, Print Brokers do it for them: all in one place. As well as providing a one-stop managed print solution, London Print Brokers' customers use them for many other things: A complex project, which would normally involve several suppliers with different areas of expertise for printing, for example: customers can free up their resources to concentrate on that project and out-source the printing to Print Brokers.

If a customer is exhibiting at a show or fair, they can concentrate on the logistics and leave the printing of business cards, exhibition graphics and stands, leaflets and flyers to Print Brokers. The print industry is so varied and diverse that no individual print company could hope to serve the entire market competitively. They'd have down time on their presses and so on. Print Brokers have taken a number of trade-only print companies, with diverse equipment able to serve the whole market, packaged in up and brought it to the market as a one-stop managed print solution.