PUBLICATION CENTER

How Mandel Company thrives in difficult economic times by re-defining the large-format printing business.

Using the word digital to describe anything has become meaningless. And, for Mandel Company, its counterpart in the large-format market – printing – has also become somewhat meaningless, at least in the way Mandel Company presents its capabilities to its customers and prospects.

“Digital printing as a way to describe what we do makes no sense to buyers today. We don’t want to be known as a printer, but for a finished product, like custom point-of-sale,” explains Rick Mandel, president of Mandel Company.

Toward that end, Mandel Company employs a network of independent contractors it can call on when parts of a project go beyond the company’s in-house capabilities. So, if a custom frame or standee is needed to meet project specifications, Mandel farms it out.

“These are a lot of independent contractors looking for opportunities who don’t have a lot of overhead, so their pricing is competitive. We still control all of the aspects with our customer in terms of details, follow-up, fulfillment and distribution, but building networks with other manufacturers has allowed us to be a project solution company rather than just a printer,” says Mike Danz, executive vice president of Mandel Company. “If you’re good at managing projects, organization, fulfillment and distribution, customers don’t care if you have everything in-house.”

Smart Growth

“We’ve offset the marketplace by taking on different kinds of projects that may not fit in the typical wide-format market,” adds Danz. “We’ve been able to expand our role with customers, which has kept us busy and growing during tough economic times. In turn, there’s more value-add with each project where the customer is relying on your expertise, service, and solutions and less on how cheap you can print something on vinyl or plastic.”

Mandel Company’s approach is partly based on its 117 years of experience in the graphics industry, all the changes the company has seen in technology, and the roller coaster of the regular economic cycle. When you’ve weathered the Great Depression and navigated the choppy waters of the digital boom and come out on either side stronger than before, you’re likely to have accumulated some wisdom along the way.

Another of Mandel Company’s wise choices has been in how the company adopts, places, and uses new technology. According to Rick Mandel, technology has a tendency to become the tail wagging the dog. Instead of simply solving a customer’s problem and providing a solution that meets their needs, many print shops find themselves in a technology trap where they have to feed that new expensive printer, regardless of whether or not that printer is the best fit to produce the job.

“When wide-format digital printing started to take off in the ‘90s, some offset commercial printers were adding wide-format inkjet to production. Then, when they would bid a wide-format job, they would quote it out two different ways, essentially competing with themselves in the process,” explains Mandel. “I think that’s a bad business model and it confuses the buyer. There needs to be a reason why you would use one device over another, and it’s not which one is cheaper. There should be a manufacturing/engineering reason you can give the customer that promotes the value of your approach.”

In Mandel’s case, though the company is looking closely at bringing UV-curable flatbed technology in-house, it has no compelling reason based on the needs of its customers or its own production workflow to do so. In most cases, Mandel prefers the quality, gloss level, speed and unattended printing aspects of solvent over UV-curable, and will not add technology just because one large job that requires flatbed printing comes through the doors. For the time being, Mandel is content with relying on others with flatbed capability to provide wholesale services on an as-needed basis.

With an HP solvent printer and a sister company that prints primarily dye-sub fabric, Mandel keeps it relatively simple and lean, relying on a cross-trained staff that knows the business inside and out. “All of our people have to be able to multi-task, including managers and sales staff. We don’t have a customer service layer; our salespeople are customer service. Our production people have to be proficient at pre-press and setup as well as manage and run all the digital equipment,” says Danz. “You can get a lot done with fewer machines. You just have to be efficient, smart, and manage your people well, and you can get a lot of product out the door.”

“It’s what you do after you print that makes you who you are,” adds Mandel. “The commodity side of vinyl printing has become obnoxious, so there has to be a way to differentiate your services. Whether it’s fleet graphics, special event signage, or trade-show graphics, it’s the finishing, installation and overall project management that makes you unique.”