Businesses nationwide would be booming if they could duplicate Russell Gnant. So far, no high-end machine can pump out clones as affable as the president and CEO of Spectrum Digital Services LLC. But it's not Gnant's courteousness that has enabled the recordable-disc printing and production company to grow rapidly since its founding in 1998. It's his customer-consciousness.
Based in a 16,000-square-foot facility in Hartland, Wis., Spectrum Digital Services offers screen printing, duplicating, packaging and distribution of recordable compact discs (CD-Rs) and recordable digital video discs (DVD-Rs) to printers, advertising agencies and other firms nationwide. They turn to Gnant and his 15 employees for a good reason: Recordable media have created new opportunities for information management. More companies are moving printed applications such as training manuals, technical documentation and large brochures to CD-R and DVD-R formats, allowing recipients to point and click their way to information. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs can include data, audio, video and other multimedia files.
When Spectrum Digital Printing receives CD-Rs and DVD-Rs from customers, it often doesn't know what files those discs include. That's fine: The company's job is to provide eye-catching printing on the discs, duplicate them or both.
Record This: It's a Great Market
Spectrum Digital Services has invested close to $2 million in the infrastructure necessary to provide CD-R and DVD-R screen printing and duplicating. Operating 94 fully automated duplication drives, the company is a well-known force in the recordable-disc industry. "But the printing industry doesn't really know us from Adam," Gnant quips. He says 80 percent of the firm's business is through approximately 1,000 resellers, and he recently identified printing manufacturers and distributors as a new target market.
Fortune 100 companies such as IBM, Motorola and Ford Motor Company use recordable discs printed or duplicated by Spectrum Digital Services, but "hundreds of end users don't know we printed their materials, and that's fine with us," Gnant says. "It makes much more sense to develop relationships with resellers who can market the services we provide. We just concentrate on keeping our reputation for quality and timeliness."
To that end, Spectrum Digital Services sets specific goals related to product quality, on-time performance and customer satisfaction. Employees post monthly charts of delivery times, constantly aiming to achieve 100-percent success. The firm's average turnaround time dropped from 72 hours in 1998 to 48 hours in 2002. It now processes many orders in less than 24 hours. The company's each-client-matters outlook is one reason it recently was named to the Future 50, a list of the fastest-growing companies in the Milwaukee area as recognized by the Council of Small Business Executives of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
Digital Highs for CCI
Each time Spectrum Digital Services prints on or duplicates a CD-R or DVD-R, it literally adds the project to its wall. (See photo on page 5.) When Gnant looks at the wall, he sometimes reminds himself that recordable-disc technology is most ripe for three kinds of end users: ones needing fewer than 1,000 (firms needing more than 1,000 should use companies called replicators, who "mold" original contents onto each disc instead of making one disc and duplicating it), ones needing discs quickly, and ones needing a customized disc for each recipient (such as a bank that sends different statements to each customer).
Commercial Communications Inc. (CCI), Hartland, Wis., is one customer whose CD-R is on Spectrum Digital Services' wall. After the Hegwood family founded CCI in 1982, the firm primarily provided printing on demand to Midwest firms. (See "CCI at a Glance" above.) Developing e-business solutions has allowed the company to reduce publication and distribution costs and deliver more customized information to customers.
CCI's focus on streamlining customer processes led the firm to look closely at offering recordable-disc technology. "Technology is extremely important in the printed world," says Brent Hegwood, CCI's executive vice president of sales and marketing and an owner of the company. "This isn't an industry of ink on paper anymore. It's about managing information. That's one reason our relationship with Spectrum is so valuable."
A leader in recreational equipment recently turned to CCI for training kits. Each kit included a printed manual with a CD-R protected in a vinyl sleeve inside the back cover. Each disc included a training workbook dealers could use to better understand fuel systems, basic electrical theory, and other essential automobile systems and functions. Most of CCI's CD-R applications are discs placed in manufacturing customers' printed manuals.
Darin Painter is managing editor of Print Solutions. Email
him your comments at dpainter@PSDA.org.
