Business Spotlight: The Paper Trail

Any office manager will say office machines can be the bane of their existence. From ordering supplies to troubleshooting to service calls, the associated tasks can take up an inordinate amount of time. On the expense side, print-related jobs command an average of one-third of administrative budgets, according to an ongoing Office Depot study of small and midsize companies.

Erik Crane, president of Springfield-based Copy Products Inc., is in business to ease that burden. As a former basketball player and coach, he has a flair for sports lingo, adding colorful phrases to the typically hum-drum discussion of office machines and proving the adage that a little color goes a long way.

“People shouldn’t think about their printer, except when they’re walking to get their copies,” he says. “Everybody has better things to worry about. Doctors save lives, teachers shape the minds of tomorrow’s leaders – yet they can’t do those things if they can’t print a patient’s treatment orders or a fifth-grade lesson plan.”

As CPI marks 50 years in business, its history offers a snapshot of adaptation. Founded as a traditional print shop in 1963 by Vernon and Antoinette Starks in Iola, Kan., the company has survived every trend in the modern printing industry.

Originally a certified dealer for Royal Copiers, a company better known for indestructible typewriters, the Starks’ experience has run the gamut. From movable typesetting to purple-inked mimeograph copies to today’s multifunctional wirelessly networked machines, Vernon Starks says the company evolved from an “era of antiquity” to the current digital age.

“At the time we started, liquid plain-paper copying was considered the latest thing,” Starks says. “It’s been a fun and exciting ride, and it’s not over yet.”

In 1970, the company incorporated and liquidated its traditional printing equipment to focus on copier sales, before expanding to Pittsburg, Kan., the next year. Since opening a Joplin store in 1984, CPI has added a new location – Springfield; Mountain Home, Ark.; and Wichita, Kan. – every six to eight years. During that time, the company maintained an average 5-10 percent year-to-year growth. Like most businesses, CPI endured lean years 2009–11. While Crane declined to disclose company revenues, he says there were no layoffs or terminations during the recession.

Today, the regional operations focus on integrated print solutions and support roughly 10,000 machines across four states.

CPI’s 70 employees provide sales, support and follow-up service on an estimated 6,000 contracts with such companies as Redneck Trailer, Joplin Supply Co. and Lamar Advertising. About 75 percent of these machines are leased rather than sold, but Crane says the company’s approach doesn’t vary between types of clients.

“Our goal is always to provide ‘one throat to choke,’” he says, “to be the primary contact for all things print-related. We make sure that hardware, software and management systems all work together. If they don’t, our partners have a single call to make – to us.”

Crane says demand is increasing for managed print services and electronic document management systems associated with the company’s high-end products. MPS products offer scalable packages of networked copiers, printers, scanners and faxes, while EDM services assist in indexing, storage and retrieval of each printed and scanned document. The systems also pull in big-picture data, allowing for minute adjustments in document flow, power management and even water usage.

SRC Automotive Inc. Chief Financial Officer Tom Bates says the remanufacturer utilizes CPI for its overall print solutions – a move that he says has saved SRC time and money on the service side of the equation.

“With other companies I’ve worked with in the past, downtime for repairs or service has averaged four to six hours,” he says. “With their team, it’s rare that one of our machines is ever offline for more than an hour.”

Crane recognizes an office equipment company is built on service.

“That’s why I have twice as many technicians as sales people – selling is short, but service is long,” he says. “A sale takes 90 to 180 days, but we will maintain that machine for up to 10 years, and that’s where our relationships are created.”[[In-content Ad]]