Direct - the full range of digital printing options

Direct's Production Director Matti Käki points out that the Direct unit is different in character from traditional printing - we cannot speak of ordinary production here.

"We put together customer and case-specific tailored service solutions. We aim to respond to our customers' needs as comprehensively as possible, and we help them to develop their own business operations."

According to Käki, Direct offers, for example, focused target-group communications, which customers can use to increase the impact of their marketing and to cut costs.
"Marketing elements can also be neatly combined with invoicing processes and other transactional letters," Käki says.

The customer comes before the technology
Direct is made up of 2 plants: Hansaprint Direct Oy in Vantaa (called Direct Vantaa) and the Direct plant in Turku (Direct Vantaa). With the change of organisation Hansaprint Direct Oy will be integrated more closely into being part of Hansaprint. Direct Vantaa uses what is known as electrophotography technology, while the Direct Vantaa use inkjet technology. According to Matti Käki, the two methods complement each other well.
"Inkjet technology is ideally suited for large print runs and transactional mailings. Electrophotography's advantages include virtually offset-quality printing and lots of room to manoeuvre in the choice of papers."
Käki emphasises that Direct's primary operational idea is that the customer always comes before the technology:
"We always think in terms of individual cases, about which solutions will suit the customer best. Sometimes, the solution can be a technology other than digital printing - say, offset printing or a hybrid product, in which part of the printed product is printed digitally and part traditionally."
"Digital printing's strengths are primarily associated with its short delivery time, flexibility and the possibility of using variable elements," Käki emphasises.
Direct's repertoire also includes a wide range of logistics services.
"For example, one important service is print-on-demand, i.e. doing print jobs with updated data that meets the specific needs of the moment. That way customers avoid being in the situation of having a stock, say, of product catalogues whose information will soon be out of date."

Genuine partnership
According to Matti Käki, Direct's organisation is largely founded on projects.
"When we set about making tailored solutions, a key position is held by a project manager, who knows both the customer's needs and the technology's capabilities well. All in all, the process demands very close collaboration with the customer; a genuine partnership."
"The production side then takes more responsibility for the project at a later stage. If necessary we can also utilise the Hansa IT organisation's resources."
According to Käki, Direct's main objectives include helping customers to benefit even more from their own customer relationships - to take care of old customers and to acquire new ones. There are lots of ways of doing this, with one example worth mentioning being Hansaprint's collaboration with Xtract, which specialises in managing and analysing address information.
"If the target group is known, this can be identified from among a large mass of addresses. And the target group can then be offered precisely the information that is relevant and interesting to it," Käki says.