The next time you prepare to purchase new equipment, ask yourself two questions: Will I be more successful if I upgrade my current equipment to offer my customers better quality or faster service? Or, should I invest in a different type of printer and offer my customers something entirely new?
In a 2019 IDC webinar, Research Director at IDC, Tim Greene, posed a powerful question. He said,
“You can get the greatest, fastest machine that will help you go faster and provide greater service levels — an ‘operations-driven investment’ — but what is stopping other commercial printers in your area from doing the same thing?” -Tim Greene, Research Director at IDC
It’s a good question, right? Let’s compare what Greene calls “operations-driven investments” with his suggested alternative, “innovation-driven investments.”
Buying the “Newest, Greatest” Large Format Digital Printer
Upgrading your current large format printer with the latest version is definitely the more comfortable decision. That is, if comfort is based on past successful experience and trust in the manufacturer. Whatever benefits the new printer provides, you can pass on to your current customers. You may or may not win new customers or additional jobs because of the latest equipment, but you will probably experience a more improved workflow since the printer is better than your current one.
One major drawback to choosing an upgraded large-format printer is it will not help you combat a commoditized market. Unless you are capitalizing on always offering the lowest price, you can expect to remain in the shark tank, striving to be better or faster, but always bidding against the other PSPs who bite at your profit margin.
An alternative is to jump out into new waters full of fish and hungry customers. That is where purchasing new equipment like a large format digital 3D printer can help you be different and capture both new customers and new profitable projects from your existing customer base.
Stand Out With Large Format 3D Printing
Massivit produces a family of innovative large format digital 3D printers that are completely different from everything else on the market because these large printers rapidly and cost-effectively create 3D objects. These objects include:
Custom-Shaped Soft Signage (SEG frames)
Innovative Channel Letter Signs and Logos
Stage, TV and Movie Props and backdrops
Businesses that incorporate Massivit printing technology place themselves in new, unchartered territory in their market, and they’ve reported experiencing two amazing trends:
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With the unique Massivit 3D printer, the business can dictate its own price margins and avoid masses of competing bids.
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They see new great interest among current customers, vendors, and prospects who want to see the large 3D printer. It is quite a sight! These visits inevitably lead to job orders, both 3D printing jobs as well as jobs requiring the business’ existing technology. (The Massivit 3D printer is quite the salesperson!)
The international Boston Consulting Group calls a business that differentiates itself the Premier Player and says “this is the optimal strategy for a market in which the dominant source of advantage is through meaningful differentiation which diminishes direct competition.”
Let’s take a look at some businesses that jumped out of the shark tank to chart new waters as the first in their area with the large format 3D printer.
We recently blogged about how Media Resources broke into the movie industry only after a movie executive saw their Massivit printer and learned how fast it could produce props. Here are two others.
Metropole Penetrates 5 New Industries With Their Massivit 3D Printer
METROPOLE is Paris’ out of home (OOH) advertising and large format digital printing expert. When they installed two Massivit 1800 3D printers their phones started ringing from people who wanted to see the big 3D printers. (Note Trend 2 above.) After becoming familiar with the 3D printing technology, jobs began lining up. Within 21 months, they were discussing 40 projects for the large 3D printer, and they expanded from the OOH industry to film, luxury, advertising, museums, and events.
Have you ever heard of a business opening doors into new sectors like that because they bought a newer version of the digital printer they already had?
Carisma Large Format Uses Their Massivit 3D Printer To Launch An Industry
Not long before New York’s large format digital printing company, Carisma Large Format, had a meeting with Sony Pictures about an upcoming movie launch, their CEO, Moshe Gil, had an idea. He wanted to do something different. He already ordered the Massivit 1800 printer but did not take possession yet. Even so, he wanted to pitch a 3D project. With the support of Massivit (and FedEx’s overnight delivery service) Moshe had a 3D-printed sample to take on the plane with him to Hollywood.
Let’s just say the client went nuts for the idea.
The Angry Birds 3D-printed bus wraps launched an industry in which Carisma is the king. Since that first project, the large format printing company has done 16 3D-printed bus wraps.
3D printed Ghostbusters bus by Carisma
Fast and Large 3D Printing Is The New Game-Changing Milestone
Massivit printers offer more than immediate interest among prospects and customers. These printers offer radical printing speed, unlimited creative options, and unlimited size. Printing companies and fabrication studios that have Massivit printers are continually realizing new applications, much to the extreme joy of their customers.
Richard Romano, Senior Analyst at WhatTheyThink, has a very bright outlook for printing shops who adopt 3D printing:
“When wide format printing became a force to be reckoned with in the 2000s, designers and their clients had to rethink how they approached marketing campaigns, and the same is true now with 3D technologies. How do you take that new technology and merge it with the others? Once they figure what’s possible and what can be done, then that just unleashes the imagination to take it any direction anybody wants to go.” -Richard Romano, WhatTheyThink Senior Analyst
Since launching its first large format digital 3D printer in mid-2016, there are over 120 Massivit 3D printers installed throughout the world as of this writing. The water is still clear for printing companies to jump out of the shark tank into the sea of possibilities and self-determined margins.
You can learn more about “innovation-driven investments” by watching the full 44-minute webinar here. If you want to go ahead and test the waters, download this complimentary 3D Applications Booklet and show your current customers what you can offer them.
