The hottest output center's clever plan to turn th

Since the end of the "seminar on the current situation and future of export centers in Beijing" last month, many bosses of export centers have called to thank India Trade connect for holding a rare exchange and communication party for industry decision makers, but they also mentioned that their peers still failed to help them out of the difficulties encountered in scientific and technological innovation, price competition, technological process changes, film price rise and so on after getting to know each other. Individual bosses are more worried that the export center will be unprofitable after the film price continues to rise, and collectively sell the equipment in hand to engage in other businesses, resulting in the collapse of the industry! Some privately asked whether we should strike first and take immediate action to leave the film output industry? Although I have never operated in the export industry, I have been dealing with many export centers for more than ten years. I take this opportunity to express my personal views on the machine improvement technology faced by the film export industry in Beijing, which has effectively reduced the energy consumption of equipment during operation and quickly transformed it into a challenge

■ the price competition in the output center is of course

first of all, the current price competition phenomenon in the capital output center is not unique. Many other industries in China have also seen vicious bargaining and business grab behavior. Some industry manufacturers (such as DVD players and lighters) have even killed prices from home to abroad, and there are endless disturbances such as "anti-dumping". From the perspective of market economics, the main reason why the price of the same product (or service) is getting lower and lower is the continuous maturity of the market. When the output increases with the total market demand, the labor and production costs then decline. Under the condition that the products remain unchanged and are operated in a non patented or non monopoly manner, the price of the products in the market will reflect the balance of perfect competition and the transaction between the buyer and the seller if you like. When there are too many products or suppliers in the market and the demand fails to keep up, a "buyer's market" of oversupply will be formed, and the product price will continue to decline until some suppliers cannot operate and leave the market. In the printing service industry, in addition to the falling service prices of output centers, the prices of digital printing, copying, traditional printing and binding are also falling. However, the process and steps of film output are relatively transparent and simple. Unlike other printing and binding services with rich content, its charge can combine paper, materials and various post press processing processes, making it difficult to detect the decline of individual prices. In fact, the recent decline in the single work price of digital printing and traditional offset printing is not necessarily smaller than that of the film export industry, but it is easy to find relevant value-added services for the printing process, and use the increase of comprehensive charges to make up for the price difference of a certain process

■ it is impractical to unify prices and service standards

at the "seminar" last month, some output centers proposed to jointly formulate unified prices and service standards for the film output industry. The author believes that the unified charging and service mode of the industry is difficult to achieve in a market economy. As the saying goes: you get what you pay for. Since there are many export centers with uneven service and quality in the market, the charges will naturally not be the same. Enterprises with different output prices can survive, which proves that customers have different needs for price, output quality and service. The rigid regulation of a unified output price will only deprive customers of the right to choose, resulting in customers' irrational elimination of some output centers, which also violates the economic law of the free market. Moreover, in view of the national characteristics, Chinese businessmen have believed that their peers are enemies since ancient times, and rarely unite to face customers. The unification of prices and service conditions may be agreed and implemented by some industry members in European and American countries, but it is unlikely to happen in China. ■ value added services build brands and competitive advantages

some output centers complain that film prices cut profit margins, making them trapped in an increasingly fierce price war. The author believes that price reduction is not necessary to survive. Many brand enterprises that adhere to the high-profile route in the market charge relatively high fees, but because they have a certain number of customers who pursue famous brands, their business is not affected by the market price war. In today's market economy will continue to depreciate. Only through continuous value-added and continuous improvement of products or services, the recent film price rise is just a magnifying glass, revealing the long-standing problems in the film output industry. The real difficulty that the export center needs to face is how to improve the single service content and broaden the existing narrow business scope. Adding more value-added services to the current service is a short-term effective compromise. On the one hand, the output center can realize the differentiation of products through the high efficiency, high quality, professional attitude, accuracy and other service qualities of daily operation. On the other hand, it can also expand the existing business scope by extending core services. In fact, many large-scale output centers have already provided high-precision roller scanning, electronic color separation, digital proofing and traditional proofing as an extension of output services. In addition, in addition to the current popular instant pickup and delivery of live parts and file transmission, value-added services can also be used to check output files and simple color correction of pictures for customers, and even systematically store and manage output files and images for customers

■ potential advantages of output center

to evolve the output center into a radiant, larger and more influential entity, it depends on the insight and broad vision of the bosses of the output center to the entire printing industry. First, most of the customers of the export center are advertising companies, graphic design companies, graphic production companies, printing management companies, publishing houses and magazines, and even some are desktop publishing or market communications departments within large enterprises. The customer resources are very extensive and quite rich. Second, because film output is an industry that competes against every minute, customers often require short frequency and fast service. Generally, the distance between the output center and its customers is short, and the reasonable and correct use of fixtures is conducive to the smooth and frequent experiments. What is more interesting is that most of the more than 100 export centers in the capital are evenly distributed in all urban areas (within the Fourth Ring Road, see the left figure), covering their surrounding customers, rather than the high-density assembly of Digital Express Printing centers or printing plants in some areas. This may mean that most export centers give priority to establishing and maintaining customer groups in their own defined regions to avoid multiple competitors seizing customers in the same region. Or perform curve amplification. At the same time, the operation of output center is relatively independent and does not need to rely on the support of other peers. Therefore, theoretically, the penetration and service response of the output center to customers in its "own region" are stronger than those of other competitors. Third, in addition to a relatively small number of computer direct output plate (CTP) services, film output and proofing are still the necessary processes for traditional domestic business and book printing. The export center provides commercial and publishing customers with the previous process of printing production process, and also grasps the information that live parts are about to enter the printing process at the first time. If the output center can provide film output customers with the next or subsequent production process after the film is produced by a cost-effective means, and realize a one-stop full set of printing process services, the future of the output center will be unlimited. Today's business model has changed from "production orientation" to "customer orientation". Whoever owns and grasps customers and their relevant information will surely win and dominate business opportunities. The rich customer resources of the output center, the close and long-term cooperative relationship with customers, and the advantages of mastering the front end of the printing process make them have a broad space for future development. ■ take a step back

in the process of business operation, it is sometimes found that the expenditure of individual service departments is more than the income. However, due to the customer's request for such services, the enterprise can only continue to operate and is regarded as a way to retain customers. When the output center no longer takes the production service as the source of profits, but takes it as a way to attract major businesses, the development of the output center will be promising! In fact, according to the overall cost of ordinary commercial printing tasks, the expenses of film output and proofing account for only a small percentage. If the output center can make the best of the output task with small expenditure under the condition of profit, and obtain the order of the overall task with greater revenue, this kind of operation of fighting for the big with the small will be very cost-effective. To expand business and increase turnover, enterprises generally have no more than three development directions: (1) increase the number of customers, (2) increase the frequency of customers' consumption, and (3) increase the amount of customers' consumption each time. In fact, in addition to the price competition with peers, the output center can speed up the printing process and shorten the waiting time for process transfer around the production of films through the following diversified and one-stop services, so as to achieve the above three development goals:

(I) add equipment and staff to provide customers with printing and post printing services connected with the production of films, such as offset printing Digital printing (including inkjet, photo, exhibition services) and related binding, post press processing and other services. Adopting this method requires strong funds to purchase equipment. In fact, there are many successful examples of Beijing evolving from an export plate making center to a diversified printing service enterprise, such as rainbow printing, today's scenery, Fangjia color printing, yazhengyuan, longri graphics and so on

(II) add human resources, computers and related prepress equipment to provide customers with prepress services connected with the release of films, such as graphic design, graphic production and book and periodical typesetting, which requires relatively less funds. In addition, some export centers also provide professional digital and traditional photography services. Some of them have their own high-specification photography studios or studios, professional lamps, backgrounds and other facilities, and some can even set up scenes according to customer needs. After shooting, the center adjusts and sets the ICC contour of the picture for the customer, and matches the color with digital or traditional proofing, so that the customer

can master the color control more easily (usually the deviation will not exceed 10%). Hong Kong Dragon laser color separation company is a successful example in this direction

(III) provide printing project management services to the same group of film customers through process supervision, quality monitoring and resource integration, including the original service content of the output center. When customers of printing services pay more and more attention to their own core businesses and require to improve their productivity and work efficiency, they will tend to outsource the work of printing supervision to professional institutions to track the printing process and monitor the printing quality and quantity for them. The output center itself is an expert in prepress process. If they can fully grasp the comprehensive printing production process, they will become the preferred object of customer printing project outsourcing. The output center stands at the front end of the printing production supply chain. As the business agent of the printing factory, it can face customers with the printing price provided by the factory and provide professional project management services at the same time. As the export center collects agency fees from the printing factory as compensation, what the customer pays is still the printing factory price, without paying any additional fees to the export center. The cooperation between the customer and the export center in printing services is guaranteed by economic interests. At that time, the printing factory can