Fast Forward Series: Impact Innovates Client Offerings with ProStream and varioPRINT iX3200
Consistent growth is a critical part of Impact’s overall game plan. This focus on progress motivated the forward-thinking direct marketing company to transition to the Canon ProStream and varioPRINT iX3200. Watch this video to learn why CEO Pete Studer calls the move to Canon inkjet “one of the top five decisions we’ve ever made.”
Impact Scales Commercial Print Operations with the Support of Canon Inkjet Technology
For more than 40 years, Impact has established itself as a resilient and highly innovative force within the commercial printing industry. Originally founded with a focus on direct mail, the company has successfully expanded its overarching operations to encompass three distinct, highly profitable revenue streams: direct mail, transactional mail, and comprehensive fulfillment pick-and-pack services.
As the digital landscape continuously evolves, print has remarkably rejuvenated itself multiple times over the past five years, proving its enduring power as a dynamic communication medium. However, to thrive in this shifting environment and effectively manage highly personalized, custom printing demands, Impact recognized the need to embrace advanced manufacturing technologies.
Scaling Capacity and Elevating Print Quality
In recent years, commercial print providers have faced a rapidly changing market where customer expectations are higher than ever before. For Impact, the primary operational challenge revolved around aggressively scaling their manufacturing capabilities while simultaneously elevating their overarching print quality. Their clients were actively requesting a higher standard of visual print quality that older, legacy printing systems simply struggled to consistently produce at scale.
Additionally, the facility needed to significantly increase its overall production capacity to confidently handle growing volumes of complex, data-driven direct mail and short-run applications without missing crucial delivery deadlines. Furthermore, managing these intricate, highly personalized jobs across three different business revenue streams required a massive leap in overarching workflow automation. To help successfully conquer these intense daily demands and secure its future in a competitive market, the organization needed a reliable technology partner capable of delivering robust, high-speed digital inkjet solutions.
A Decade of Strategic Inkjet Investment
To help solve these pressing manufacturing challenges, Impact forged a deep, strategic partnership with Canon, embarking on a transformative digital inkjet journey. Roughly a decade ago, the company made what its leadership considers one of the top five strategic decisions in its entire history: taking the leap into advanced inkjet technology alongside Canon.
This ongoing technological transition included the highly successful installation of the Canon VarioPrint i300 and the ColorStream 3900Z for continuous forms printing. The VarioPrint i300 installation proved to be a gamechanger, enabling the facility to go out to its customers and offer innovative products and services they had never been able to produce before. Building upon this success, Impact further expanded its Canon fleet in 2021 by investing in a Canon ProStream press, which was installed just two months prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. To complement this high-volume continuous feed system and target new business opportunities, the company subsequently integrated the Canon varioPRINT iX3200, bringing even higher quality and vast new capabilities to its cutsheet production floor.
Extended Capacity, Premium Output, and Seamless Automation
The strategic implementation of this comprehensive Canon inkjet ecosystem has helped deliver highly measurable benefits across Impact's entire production environment. First and foremost, the installation of the Canon ProStream helped to successfully double the facility's overarching printing capacity. From a visual quality standpoint, the advanced ProStream helped to eliminate the long-standing industry question regarding offset versus inkjet quality, delivering the premium, offset-like results that Impact customers were demanding.
The addition of the Canon varioPRINT iX3200 further revolutionized the shop floor by providing the ability to efficiently run short-run postcards and complex self-mailers on premium coated stocks. Together, the ProStream and the varioPRINT iX3200 perfectly complement one another, successfully combining outstanding print quality with the immense flexibility required to consistently produce highly personalized, custom applications.
Operationally, Canon has served as a great technology partner in managing the complex automation required to run these highly sophisticated presses and intricate workflow systems. Because the underlying technology—including the paper versatility, inks, and software—is advancing rapidly, Impact is excited about both its current offerings and what it will be able to offer clients in the future.
Beyond the physical hardware, the most significant benefit of this technological transformation has been the unwavering support provided by Canon. The relationship extends far beyond a traditional vendor interaction; Impact's leadership noted that the Canon team has a profound dedication to the company's long-term success.
Furthermore, Canon actively supports the thINK community, an independent, vendor-organized group of Canon customers that is widely considered one of the strongest vendor communities in the country. This independent board enables print providers to share new opinions, exchange best practices, and continuously learn about the true power of modern print.
Through this powerful combination of cutting-edge technology and dedicated partnership, Canon has successfully helped Impact find its highly profitable niche in the personalized printing market, allowing the company to steadily add production volume every single year.
Interested in learning how Canon production printing technology can help your business grow? Contact us today.