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Solutions April 2006
433
East Monroe
Change
is the Law of Life
President
John F. Kennedy once said that
“Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the
past or present are certain to
miss the future.” The same
can be said of the business world.
Companies that change and adapt
with their evolving client bases
stand a better chance of survival
than those who do not.
Quite
a few examples of companies doing
this can be found among this year’s
Top 100 Manufacturers list. Average
fiscal year 2005 sales growth
for manufacturers who submitted
information was 5.9 percent, an
improvement over the past fiscal
year which showed a 4.7 percent
increase in sales.
Few
companies that achieved double-digit
sales growth did it by maintaining
the status quo. Many purchased
or upgraded technology and equipment,
wading cautiously or diving boldly
into digital printing (p. 55).
Others simply paid attention to
products and programs that did
well and those that didn’t,
modifying their product offerings
accordingly. Those companies talked
to customers and analyzed which
market sectors were growing. Then
they focused many of their programs
on those areas. This sometimes
required new equipment, hiring
additional staff or reorganizing.
Those success stories can be found
in the Top 100 Manufacturers Overview
on p. 38 and are dispersed throughout
the Top 100 rankings.
Change
has become the law of life in
the ever-evolving forms industry,
too. The various incarnations
of DMIA in its 60-year history
bear witness to this. First, the
organization was called the Independent
Business Forms Dealers of America
in 1946, then the National Business
Forms Associates a year later.
It was renamed the National Business
Forms Association in 1963 and
finally the Print Services & Distribution Association in 1996.
In this issue, we mark DMIA’s
60th anniversary, profiling two
of its founding companies: The
Flesh Company (p. 103) and Cooley
Group Inc. (p. 106). These companies
have grown and adapted to changing
customer demands and advances
in technology. They stood the
test of time while others faded.
LaShell
Stratton
Assistant
Editor
