Lead SupplyThe evolution of print and marketing procurement

Client

All activity flows simply through our technology platform, enabling unparalleled insight and ultimate control over stakeholder activity.

Foreword

For a number of years now, and with only a few notable exceptions, single source print and marketing communication models have remained fairly stagnant.

The vast majority of organisations deliveringsolutions in this field are conducting it more or less as they always have: either struggling to make a return or fighting a losing battle against a declining supplier base and the general move to more personalised, digital communications. A traditional supplier can’t add a great deal of value to this without relying heavily on its supply chain. Additionally, the traditional model of driving out cost via the supply chain is unsustainable for a number of reasons, including a reduction in suppliers willing to work within this model, hidden production and paper rebates, and extended lead times. These all impact the production house.

Ultimately most providers make their returnby sourcing print and marketing services, notoffering true digital alternatives. The hybrid LeadSupply model offered by Paragon delivers greatervalue due to in-house capabilities and technicalunderstanding, direct access to white paper and digital solutions, as well as a broad suppliernetwork to bridge the gap between those productsbetter suited to outsourced partners. This deliversa wider choice for our clients and a sustainablemodel which isn’t purely built on the reliance ofexternal partners.

Nick Barbeary Client Development Director

Paragon Customer Communications

Building the bigger picture

We all understand the importance of ‘seeing the big picture’, but how we drive and shape each individual element that goes into the big picture is crucial for business leaders to fully understand their model as a whole.

The explosion in channels of communication, driven largely by constant advancements in technology, challenges companies to keep a handle on the purchasing process which risks becoming dispersed and siloed.

Businesses need to find a way of keeping the pieces together as they execute their multi-channel communications strategies. But this is proving difficult, with specialist suppliers seemingly

required for everything from print management to digital communications and much more.

For each supplier, businesses must go through the process of sourcing, tendering, evaluating and auditing. Once this process is complete, the time implication from a management and resource point of view to look after all these relationships in a consistent manner without impacting on cost and time, is very challenging. Creating channels which remain open, transparent and of course reliable can take the majority of supply challenges away.

Identifying all the piecesIn an increasingly digital age, businesses are challenged to navigate their way to multi-channel, data-driven communications. Identifying the pieces that make up a successful communications strategy, and then managing and combining them to run smoothly, is crucial in how you communicate with your customers.

There are challenges that a business will face, from print management to data management, but to avoid different elements tarnishing the strategy as a whole, each individual piece has to be managed to its full potential.

Your supply chain: Over-capacity in a changing market is driving down pricing to an unsustainable level. This instability can impact on your consistency and quality of service. All of this can subsequently impact on time and cost – being able to have agreed sustainable and manageable pricing internationally, along with a transparent business model can eliminate fluctuations in your print management.

How you manage data:With increased challenges around data security and also the levels of risk and compliance within a business, managing your data becomes more important than ever. Utilising how you then work with that data to optimise your customer journey and experience is crucial, identifying both multi and single customer views.

Innovation:As technology continues to change, businesses are challenged with consistently having to keep up to stay ahead of the game. Having flexibility in digital transformation and changes means that you need

agile partners who can move in the same direction as you and provide the innovation you need to thrive.

Improving customer experience and engagement:Businesses are challenged in keeping communications timely, relevant and engaging. As the marketing landscape changes, businesses need to continue to evolve and drive measurable campaigns to their customers.

Building a communications strategy is no less difficult than building a business. You have to find out what works where and how certain areas of the business function across multiple departments and teams. Providing environments where people can thrive is of optimum importance, by creating multiple partners across different lines of communication and supply chain, that consistency is very difficult to manage.

Valuable time can be saved by working with a single communications partner. In doing so, you start to take ownership of each piece of your communications strategy, whilst creating clear visibility across a business of performance, cost and time.

Consolidate your way to better efficiency

Complexity in business is one of the biggest drivers of cost, which can hinder and limit a businesses growth potential. By looking at ways to simplify and consolidate your partners, all areas of your communication strategy can run more efficiently.

For many businesses, having multiple suppliers can mean siloed divisions, with their own cost centres and own supply risks. This coupled with different cost management models internationally, means complete visibility becomes very difficult and managing these changing costs becomes a time-consuming operation.

By consolidating your communication strategy with one partner, you can:

- Reduce purchasing costs

- Improve overall efficiency

- Build meaningful supplier relationships

- Bring all channels together, removing unwanted silos

- Drive innovation and a partnership mentality

- Effectively measure and evaluate your business processes

- Drive your business forward by recognising and learning from the past

Making sure that no pieces are missing with Paragon Lead Supply

Paragon Customer Communications deliver data-driven communication, integrating all channels through a dedicated team who recognise the benefits that come with communicating with your customers effectively and having a consolidated supply chain.

With our in-house production and approved supply chains, we can guarantee capacity at all times, in all areas of your communication needs, and by leveraging spend over multiple categories with one supplier, a business can increase their financial saving and efficiency and importantly, their speed to market.

Creating a teamwork-led environment where we can create scale, capability, agility and experience means we can be set for any eventuality in what is a very fast-moving environment.

Paragon’s industry-leading team will audit, analyse and segment your data, and will work with you on planning and strategy through to building the systems, databases, behavioural models and AI-enabled solutions.

With 120 years of heritage, as well as the most innovative and expansive range of in-house print production, Paragon is the perfect partner to give you the full emotive power of printed customer communications.

Paragon will work with you to build complex marketing campaigns, and help you to optimise your communications to transform how you do business.

Operating as an extension of your business, often embedded on site and within teams, Paragon’s managed services help you to seize new opportunities by providing you with the best talent, insight and technology at your fingertips.

With a long heritage of operating and innovating in markets where compliance and security are business critical, Paragon’s regulatory experts ensure you conform to the relevant rules all the time, every time.

Paragon is built on constant innovation – investing heavily to serve you ground-breaking solutions, the latest technology and the best talent in the business. In fact, Paragon’s commitment to innovation is written into the contract with you.

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Data & insight

Print services

Digital services

Managed services

Secure document solutions

Technology & innovation

Joining the dots

Paragon joins up the communication strategy, so each element informs the other. This creates rounded and effective plans which can work with each other. Paragon creates direct, hands-on teams that can be an extension of your business.

With one supplier, all elements of your strategy can be measurable. We put the technology in place, so you can effectively evaluate your full strategy and monitor its success rate. And, with a flexible model designed for each client, an organisation can easily pick out what works best for their business

Choosing a strategic partner with the capabilities, expertise and knowledge to manage, collect and handle your strategy in accordance with all the relevant laws, as well as company objectives, will mean that businesses can not only create engaging and effective communications campaigns, but they can also realise cost savings by removing laborious data-related and supply chain-related processes. This gives a business the opportunity to focus on wider organisational strategies, without worrying about delivery of their communications.

By maximising data and subsequently communicating effectively through the appropriate channels to an audience, businesses can start to accurately track a return on investment and, most importantly, communicate with their data sets in the right way to avoid any compliance issues or inaccurate communications to the wrong profile of customers. All this can be easier to monitor and manage with a communications partner who can provide systems and processes to accurately track how efficiently everything in your communications strategy is performing.

By 2020customer experience will have overtaken price and product as the key brand differentiator

89%of consumers have switched to doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience

87%of customers think brands need to put more effort into providing a seamless experience

Don’t just take our word for it...Here are some case studies of businesses who have achieved these benefits after working with a single marketing communications partner:

Benefit 1: Cost saving through greater efficiency

Benefit 2: Greater innovation driven by a data-backed strategy

One of the leading worldwide transport and logistics providers, operating across a large number of business sectors, sought out a single provider to consolidate its print collateral.

Operational forms that had previously been purchased by multiple sites from multiple suppliers are now bulk manufactured by the single provider. This has provided the company with significant savings through consolidated production of larger volumes that are held in stock for call-off.

British mobile network operator and internet service provider EE worked with a single provider to ensure the contact with their customers was consistent, timely and high quality.

The new system, created as part of an ongoing partnership, identifies EE customers exceeding the free SIM purchase limit, providing critical data and flagging those who could be operating as a business and ordering large numbers of SIMs to a single address.

Benefit 3: More engaged, motivated customers, thanks to more effective communications

Benefit 4: More consistent communications by consolidating suppliers

Benefit 5: Access to industry-leading experts in the field

News UK, a British newspaper publisher, joined forces with a single provider to deliver effective, innovative communications to an internal and external audience across direct mail, point-of-sale, marketing collateral, subscription mailings, merchandise, event materials and door drops.

The partner’s innovation and specialist knowledge helped News UK to deliver a 4.4% month-on-month sales rise and took the daily average newspaper sales to above 1.5 million copies. The weekend newspaper also saw a 4.9 percent rise to average weekly sales of just short of 1.3 million copies, which was a resounding success

Inchcape, a leading international automotive and one of the largest franchised dealer groups in the UK, had recognised that their dealerships were purchasing from multiple suppliers, leading to a deviation from brand guidelines.

The company sought out a single provider which ensured that all manufacturers’ brand guidelines were adhered to, due to standardisation of internal documents group-wide in compliance with the group’s brand guidelines, and helping Inchcape to achieve consistency in service levels that they had not had before..

Direct Line Group, one of the UK’s leading general insurers, sought the expertise of a single provider to help the company attract new customers.

The marketing communications partner implemented and built a team based on site at the Direct Line’s headquarters, helping to ensure the delivery of multi-million door-drops and marketing communication packs, comprising of 10 distinct direct marketing campaigns across all brands and products, as well as the seamless delivery of one of the biggest marketing print requirements in the UK.

33%of top marketers say having the right technologies for data collection and analysis is the most useful in understanding customers

82%of internet users trust print advertising when making a purchasing decision

63%of CMOs expect their innovation budget to increase in 2019

International support

Paragon is a global business, helping brands connect with their customers everywhere.

With substantial operations in 18 countries, Paragon has built a global supply chain of suppliers, enabling it to provide solutions to the unique challenges that an international brand must overcome. Those challenges include fragmented, non-standard delivery; diverse culture & systems; varying business maturity across markets; lack of overall visibility & control; and compliance.

All international opportunities are managed by a dedicated team of experts which takes ownership of the supply chain globally, supported by sales and account management teams who work alongside local teams on the client-side.

How it can work for your businessParagon is your ultimate production and sourcing solution. It gives you a dedicated, objective team of subject matter experts to guide you towards your operational goals.

It offers you full access to the unparalleled breadth, depth and technological advancement of Paragon’s in-house capabilities alongside all the choice, control and competitive pricing of the marketplace.

Paragon’s PEP platform integrates all services, countries and clients ensuring complete overall visibility of the global supply chain, which brings a number of potential benefits including:

- Eliminated cost inefficiencies

- Rationalisation to single supplier

- Brand standardisation

- Greater reliability/consistency

- Central control

This means you gain better operational opportunities than you’ve ever had before – with unbeatable diversity, efficiency, innovation and strategic insight to help you get more for less.

Connect with us to benefit from joined-up communications:

Email: hello@paragon-cc.co.ukwww.paragon-cc.co.uk

@ParagonCC_UK Paragon CC UK Paragon CustomerCommunications