Education

October 13, 2026

Is Your Best Growth Opportunity Already Inside Your Business?

# PipelineGrowth

# Sales

# Business Management

# Summit

# Vietnam Summit

HP's Yoav Lotan explores how printers can create greater value for customers by helping brands launch faster, turning quality control into business assurance, and delivering measurable marketing results.

Most print businesses try to grow by upselling (producing more volume or adding higher-value options) or cross-selling (moving into adjacent areas such as labels, flexible packaging, apparel, etc.). But what if the next stage of growth does not come from selling more print?

During his Edge Vietnam presentation "Nonstop Digital Printing Journey," HP's Yoav Lotan invited printers to consider a more fundamental question: What business is hiding inside the work you already do?

He said customers rarely buy print simply because they want a printed product; they buy it because they need to accomplish something. A brand ordering labels wants to launch a project. A company commissioning direct mail wants to generate demand. A pharmaceutical customer wants consistency and lower supply-chain risk. A start-up ordering packaging wants access to the market.

Learning From Businesses That Redefined What They Sell

Yoav highlighted several companies that discovered major new opportunities within capabilities they had originally developed for themselves:

Amazon built a vast computing infrastructure to support its online retail operation. That capability eventually became Amazon Web Services.

Shopify began with software created for an online snowboard store. Its founder later realized that the software itself could become an e-commerce platform for merchants around the world.

John Deere expanded beyond agricultural machinery by using sensors and data to help farmers make better decisions about their land, crops, water and fertilizer.

Rolls-Royce moved beyond simply selling aircraft engines. Airlines ultimately want reliable and predictable flying hours, so the company developed a business model based on availability, maintenance and assurance.

In each case, the original product was only the starting point. Growth accelerated when the company recognized the broader customer problem it could solve.

Printers can apply the same thinking, Yoav said. What can your specific knowledge, processes and partnerships help a customer achieve?

Opportunity 1: Help Brands Launch Faster

Consider what happens when a brand approaches a converter for labels or packaging. The customer may need artwork preparation, approval management, prepress, printing, finishing, and logistics. It may have to coordinate several suppliers while working towards a demanding launch date.

The converter already understands much of this journey. Instead of remaining one supplier within the process, the converter could take responsibility for coordinating more of it.

Yoav described this idea as “brand launch in a box.” Under this model, the printer or converter helps manage the entire journey from concept to shelf, giving the customer a faster and more dependable route to market.

The commercial proposition then changes. The company is no longer selling only labels, pouches or cartons. It is selling speed, coordination and fewer launch problems.

Yoav said printers exploring this opportunity should consider four questions:

Where do our customers usually lose time before a product launch?

Which approvals, suppliers or production steps create the most friction?

Which of these activities do we already help manage informally?

Could we turn that assistance into a defined, repeatable service?

Opportunity 2: Turn Quality Control Into Business Assurance

Printers routinely create proofs, inspect color, document quality, validate output and produce reports. These activities may be treated as necessary production tasks, but they can be extremely valuable to customers operating in regulated or brand-sensitive markets.

Pharmaceutical, healthcare, food and consumer-goods companies need more than an attractive printed result, Yoav pointed out. They need ...

Consistency across production runs

Confidence in compliance

A dependable supply chain

Reassurance that customers will recognize the product in the market

This creates an opportunity to package existing quality capabilities as an assurance service. Depending on the market, that service might include documented color performance, agreed tolerances, audit trails, approval workflows, compliance checks and service-level commitments.

The printer therefore moves from promising good print to providing business certainty.

To identify this opportunity, printers can ask themselves:

What risks concern our customers most?

What checks, reports and documentation do we already produce?

Which of these controls could become part of a formal assurance program?

What evidence would give customers greater confidence in every production run?

Opportunity 3: Sell Demand Creation, Not Only Printed Communication

Commercial printers often possess many of the components needed for personalized marketing, including customer data, variable content, imagery, production expertise, QR codes and fulfilment capabilities. These elements are frequently sold as separate production features. The customer must still connect them, manage the campaign and determine whether the activity produced a meaningful result.

By combining these capabilities with the right partners, a printer could offer a more complete customer journey — from data and personalized creative content through production, response capture and measurement. The conversation then moves beyond quantities, formats and cost per piece, Yoav said. It becomes a discussion about leads, conversions, customer engagement and revenue growth.

Printers considering this direction should ask:

What commercial result does the customer expect from the campaign?

Can we connect the printed piece to a measurable response?

What data or personalization would make the communication more relevant?

Which partners could provide capabilities that we do not have internally?

Simple 6-Step Way to Uncover Hidden Business

Finding a new business model does not require a major launch or a perfect plan from the beginning. Yoav proposed a practical process that allows printers to test an idea while limiting risk:

1. Discover the pain

Speak with customers and identify a recurring problem that affects their time, cost, risk, or revenue.

2. Design the outcome

Define the improvement the customer should experience, rather than focusing only on the printed product that will be supplied.

3. Prove the idea with one customer

Test the concept through one customer, prototype, pilot project or use case.

4. Package the service

Decide what the service includes, how frequently it will be provided, what it will cost and what level of service the business will promise.

5. Document the value

Collect evidence showing how the service saved time, reduced risk, improved efficiency or produced a better commercial result.

6. Scale what works

Turn a successful pilot into a consistent and repeatable offer for other customers with similar needs.

You Don't Have to Build Alone

Every example in Yoav's presentation depended on an ecosystem. Amazon needed technology partners. Netflix needed content creators. John Deere needed data and sensor expertise. Rolls-Royce needed a network capable of maintaining its engines and meeting its service commitments.

The same applies to print.

A printer does not need to become a software developer, logistics company, marketing agency and compliance specialist overnight. A better approach may be to identify the customer outcome it wants to own, then collaborate with organizations that can provide the supporting capabilities.

This is where the Dscoop community can be especially valuable. Fellow printers, technology providers and solution partners offer experience from which members can learn. A business model that has succeeded in one market may inspire a useful variation in another. Members can exchange ideas, develop partnerships and avoid having to solve every problem independently.

The next growth opportunity may not be a new printed product. It may be a valuable capability that already exists — unrecognized and unpackaged — inside your business today. The challenge for every printer is to find that capability, prove its value and turn it into a service that customers cannot imagine operating without.

Innovating Print, Together