Serious About Direct Mail: James N. Andersen, President & CEO, of the Instant Web Companies

By WTT Contributing Editor Molly Joss

Jim Andersen has been at the helm of The Instant Web Companies (IWCO) since April 1999. As an equity partner, he has brought his wide-ranging business experiences to the leadership of the company, including 19 years in the printing industry. IWCO last reported total yearly sales of $91 million and the company has more than 930 employees in three Midwest manufacturing and mailing facilities.

Prior to joining IWCO, for 13 years, Jim was with Banta Corporation. Three of those years he served as president of Banta Information Services Group & Global Turnkey. In this key leadership position, he oversaw 13 manufacturing facilities, including five overseas operations, with gross sales exceeding $330 million.

He also spent eight years with Banta Direct Marketing Group as executive vice president-sales and marketing. Jim holds a B.S. degree in judicial administration from American University, Washington, D.C.

The Instant Web Companies has served the North American printing and mailing market for more than 30 years. The company offers a wide variety of services including Web press printing, envelope printing and conversion, data processing, personalization, mailing, and comprehensive logistics management services for direct marketers.

WTT: Jim, with so many different services offered by the company, how do you choose which services to offer and do you have any guidelines for choosing a new service?

JA: IWCO is unique in our ability to offer print, plastics, envelope and mailing services from our primary campus. Our focus has been on building the platform to deliver the greatest value from this combination of services. Our integrated platform delivers both hard and soft cost savings to customers.

For example, clients producing a typical direct mail package with a c-form, brochure, plastic card, buckslip, reply envelope and outer envelope would incur freight cost between their printer(s) and their lettershop and between their envelope manufacturer(s) and their lettershop. By producing all these components at one location, we eliminate the freight cost and build in quality. Clients won’t get a call from their lettershop complaining that their envelope flaps are sticking and creating a slowdown that will incur an upcharge.

Guidelines for choosing a new service are also based on increasing the value we deliver to the customer. Our decision to serve as a beta site for the USPS’s PostalOne! initiative was based on the opportunity to increase the value of our IWCO P.O.S.T. (Postal Optimization Strategy and Technologies) commingling service to customers by providing real-time access to postal information along with a reduction in paperwork.

WTT: Tell us about some of the company’s strategic alliances, how they came about and how they benefit the company and your customers.

JA: IWCO has formed strategic alliances with equipment manufacturers and suppliers to drive efficiencies in our process that result in cost savings and cycle time reduction for customers. In addition, strategic alliances with key customers are the foundation of our continuous improvement initiatives. Our business review process establishes metrics and benchmarks for both ourselves and our clients that are reviewed quarterly. The business review process provides an opportunity to evaluate performance but more importantly, includes a discussion of strategic issues and the challenges and opportunities for both IWCO and our customers. The business review process involves our entire management team so every discipline is accountable to the continuous improvement process with our strategic alliance partners.

WTT: How did the 2002 postage increase affect your company and your customers?

JA: Unlike the surprise second increase in 2001, clients had advance notice of the 2002 postage increase and budgeted accordingly. This is not to imply that we were not affected; their budgets were very conservative with entire programs eliminated in some cases along with a reduction in testing linked to the soft economy. Fortunately, our commingling and logistics programs offered clients a way to maximize their postage dollars by increasing SCF penetration and earning the highest level of discounts available from the USPS. Unlike the majority of direct mail printers in 2002, our sales grew because we were able to offer real savings through our integrated platform that helped to offset the pain of the postage increase.

WTT: You’ve got a lot of experience in the industry and you’ve worked for vendors as well as for end-user companies. What’s your take on what companies such as yours need to do in 2003 to keep the doors open and to keep growing?

JA: Based on the experience of our management team, we know that delivering price, service, and quality are no longer enough to ensure profitable growth. Clients are looking for solutions to their own cost-containment and head count reduction challenges, and our vertical solution offers those solutions along with price, service, and quality. Our strategic plan has four key objectives that drive our ability to keep the doors open and to keep growing. These objectives include continuous improvement, asset management, company culture and profitable growth – all necessary to building the best business with the best team to service the direct mail industry in 2003 and beyond.

WTT: I know that IWCO has a carefully thought out approach to sales, including how you select and train your sales staff. Explain to the WTT readers what you have told your salespeople about taking care of the customer. How do you train your salespeople?

JA: IWCO currently has 15 salespeople in the field, servicing clients across North America. Our salespeople are confident of our focus on the customer based on some unique programs IWCO has in place to lead the industry in customer satisfaction. We make a significant investment every year in a comprehensive customer satisfaction survey administered by a third party to measure customer perceptions and expectations about our performance and our competitors’ performance.

Results of this survey are shared with the entire company and continuous improvement plans are developed both for specific accounts and attributes such as responsiveness. Our performance continues to improve and, according to our customers, our service ranks ahead of our competition in every attribute including problem solving, responsiveness, and technical knowledge.

Salespeople at IWCO offer customers a unique opportunity to talk directly with our employees in our monthly Customer Spotlight sessions. We invite one client each month to meet with 75-100 employees to discuss the client’s business, IWCO’s role in their business, and the difference between a good supplier and a great supplier. The Spotlight sessions have been enormously successful in helping everyone from senior management to machine operators to understand the client’s challenges and our opportunities to positively impact their business processes and results.

We do a minimum of eight Customer Spotlights a year with up to one to three representatives from each customer participating. We use a Larry King approach with a moderator and the client(s) on stage in front of the 75-100 IWCO employee audience. Both clients and employees have a great appreciation for the fact that we've taken production employees off the floor to participate - this indicates to all the importance and value we place on these sessions. Every Spotlight session also includes a feedback survey where employees are asked for suggestions about future participants.

The IWCO Direct Marketing Academy trains both salespeople AND customers looking for assistance in training newer buyers and other staff in the direct marketing production cycle. The Academy curriculum ensures that the sales and account services associates of IWCO can become partners and consultants guiding customers through the design and production of their marketing campaigns.

The focus of the Academy is a technical understanding of printing, envelope manufacturing, data processing, mail preparation and USPS regulations. The Academy also highlights the capabilities of IWCO, and how those capabilities can best be used to meet our customers’ needs.


Thank you Jim for your time. We wish you continued success.

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WTT Contributing Editor Molly Joss is a freelance writer and book author. She can be reached at molly@mollyjoss.com