Cut Labeling Category Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Printed Products and its sub-segments such as Cut Labeling are at an interesting intersection. The category is expected to experience a moderate price rise resulting from increasing investment in technologies and automation by commercial printing companies, but long-term price outlook remains positive for buyers as suppliers are expected to recover the technological investments soon.

High procurement costs put a hindrance for buyers looking for upgrading or replacing a printing asset. As an alternative, suppliers are offering cost-effective re-engineering capabilities such as retrofitting of existing equipment with new systems.

Many large and mid-sized companies, especially from legal, financial, healthcare and real estate sectors are still heavily reliant on paper. Off late, there is a growing concern on security of documents - whether printed or stored digitally on a connected printing device. To address this concern, suppliers are coming forward with solutions that offer print and document security and monitoring services.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Cut Labeling is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Cut Labeling procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Cut Labeling procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers should compare critical capabilities of suppliers based on security policies regarding materials provided, types of printers used, print color guarantees and TAT and onboard those that can offer a one-stop solution.

Buyers can use standard scorecards to evaluate service providers and offer necessary comments to rationalize the given scores. This will help document the decision-making process.

Buyers prefer to engage with service providers that adopt hedging techniques to mitigate the effects of fluctuations in printing ink prices. The majority of printing inks are primarily derivatives of crude oil, the prices of which are highly volatile. Thus, engaging with service providers that adopt hedging will allow buyers to minimize the impact of price fluctuations pertaining to printing inks during the contract tenure.

Cut Labeling procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Cut Labeling procurement. Some examples include: