Steve Babat, DG3's Worldwide President and CEO, is responsible for the global firm's operations, accounting, finance, procurement, and information technology. He's an expert in analyzing business growth strategies, organizational redesign and cost-optimization initiatives -- all of which have helped DG3 transition from a conventional printer into a marketing solutions provider...

Q: Let's start with a question about your customers. What would your clients say is the most important thing about your company?

A: That we listen — that we make it our mission to understand what they’re trying to achieve. We differentiate ourselves by being able to create programs that help our clients executive on whatever objective they have. Automatically, their goals become our goals.

Q: You're based in New Jersey, with locations in multiple countries and 360 employees worldwide. It feels like your company is large but also nimble. How do you stay innovative when you're this big?

A: We’re kind of in a strange space in the print world. There’s the behemoths like RR Donnelley and Quad, and there are a bunch of smaller, often-family-owned printers. And there are relatively few companies in-between, you know? We have the size and the scale to offer all that we do, but also we want to be extremely attentive to our customers. That requires us to be nimble, and to constantly think of what else we can do to achieve business outcomes for our clients.

Q: Let’s talk about those business outcomes. Helping each customer achieve its specific goals has become a mission, and even a motto, for DG3. Can you talk about the importance of the phrase "Measurable Outcomes"?

A: We're empowering our customers to achieve results, and that's exactly the message we want to give. Our team is focused on delivering outcomes through people and technology, so we’re really driving a lot of marketing activity around that concept -- achieving favorable outcomes for our customers. We believe that, whether you’re searching for project direction or need strategic support, DG3 has the experience and expertise to help.

Q: A lot of DG3's heritage lies in the financial services sector, where traits like reliability, on-time delivery and data accuracy matter greatly. Is that market still a primary target for your company?

A: Yes, absolutely, that and pharmaceutical are our two biggest verticals, though we provide print, marketing and business communication services to many markets. In the financial services world, every client has specific needs that require attention to detail. For over 30 years, DG3 Output Solutions has created custom solutions that improve efficiency and cost, and achieve a higher return on investment than traditional print campaigns alone. With a long-standing history in print and financial communications, clients may draw the conclusion that DG3 is just about creating high quality, on-time outputs. But that’s not the complete picture. We are dedicated to delivering positive business outcomes. To help grow our clients’ top line, we create campaigns that are highly targeted and reach more customers. We help shorten the sales cycle and are able to personally connect our clients with their customers. And we utilize the latest web technology solutions and state-of-the-art mobile marketing techniques for highly effective and personalized communications.

Q: Can you talk about the importance of data in all of this -- the value of being able to get it, move it, secure it and analyze it?

A: It’s critically important, and it’s truly one of the differentiators. Because we grew up serving the financial services industry, handling data securely has been important to everything we do. A lot of the data we deal with is extremely sensitive, so being able to handle it efficiency and error-free is a must. We have a variable data team here that feeds both our digital print operations and our mailing operations, and we have support for that team in our office in Manila, Philippines. That’s where we have a number of back-office functions, including some of our variable data specialists and developers. All of them operate under a methodology that’s very secure, disciplined and structured. And that is unusual for printers. It’s essentially just part of our business.

Q: Does working in specific vertical markets necessitate employing specialists for those clients. For instance, you probably need people who specifically know the nuances of pharmaceutical rule changes in different states, or others who know what public companies need to convey in their annual reports. How do you manage that?

A: Thankfully we have a great leadership team and a seasoned sales force — most of our sales force has been doing this for a long time, and they’re very knowledge in what they sell. We’ve recently taken steps to bring in some new talent, but from a people standpoint, we have a team that I think is unmatched in this industry.

Q: Let's move to the topic of innovation and technology. Why did you recently invest in the HP PageWide Web Press T250HD with Brilliant Ink?

A: Continual innovation and technology upgrades are important to our growth. We have a fairly wide mix of work that now gets printed on that machine. What has really worked for DG3 was the combination of the press upgrade and also the in-line equipment running with it, which has made for a complete solution. Also, the quality difference in the T250HD has really made it an alternative to some of our short-run work that was running offset. Plus, we have a wider variety of paper stocks that are available.

Q: Thanks, Steve. It was great to learn more about DG3’s goals, and best wishes for continued success!

A: Thank you as well!