There's an old theory about the print industry: You're either born into it, or you find it by accident—like James O'Brien did.
During his service in the United States Army, O'Brien never envisioned life as a print professional, but that's exactly what happened after he retired his combat boots. In need of a job, O'Brien accepted a sales position at Uarco, which evolved into managerial roles. He went on to handle sales and management for Duplex Products, until talk of the company's impending sale could no longer be ignored. But if O'Brien learned anything from his army days, it was how to be resourceful.
"I collaborated with a group of very smart people to start our new company," he recalled. "We incorporated many of the best things we saw at Duplex, and committed ourselves to not make the same mistakes that brought about their demise. We embraced the distributor model, and collectively worked to keep our focus on building an intimate understanding of each client's business."
O'Brien currently serves as president and managing partner of that company, GO2 Partners (then known as Print Management Partners). GO2 Partners is 100 percent employee owned, with eight offices located throughout the Midwest.
Read on as O'Brien talks business.
Print+Promo (P+P): How does the economy continue to affect the industry?
James O'Brien (JOB): I am concerned about the long-term sustainability of many companies in this industry. We have seen that a great number of printers have closed or been consolidated during the last decade, and I believe many distributors will confront that same fate. The national economy affects everyone to a degree, but each of us really lives in a microeconomic world. The recession, which started in 2008, and the recovery that started about two years ago certainly affected all of us, but we all are more directly impacted by the addition or loss of individual clients. Companies in our industry that are not growing in this market will be hard-pressed to survive, whereas companies that think strategically, and have the resources and talent to earn new business, will face a prosperous future. We see the distributor model continuing to become more capital-intense, technology-driven, and oriented toward delivering value-added services. Companies that embrace this reality will be rewarded in the marketplace as far into the future as I can see.
P+P: What do you expect to be some of the biggest changes the industry will face
JOB: Print is just one media that our clients use, and we need to be prepared to offer them comprehensive and coordinated solutions that consist of multiple media platforms. That is one reason we rebranded ourselves earlier this year. We felt our previous name "Print Management Partners" was too limiting in today's marketplace, so we selected GO2 Partners as our new brand. During the last 10 years, we have made significant investments in video, digital, mobile, social media, software development, marketing automation and other creative services so that we can be the primary problem-solver for our clients. Print is still our largest source of revenue, but we feel the other services have helped us get and retain much of the print business we enjoy today.
P+P: What do you think is the most exciting, cutting-edge things your company is doing right now? Why?
JOB: We recently completed an acquisition, and the integration of those people and clients has been a fast-moving and exciting challenge. To facilitate that integration, we created a software application to enable the smooth transfer of data from their previous computer systems to ours. Second, we have embarked on a concerted effort to automate and streamline our internal processes to enable us to more efficiently process high volumes of electronically transmitted orders from a number of important clients. Third, the agency portion of our company is always challenging us to move quickly to take advantage of new multimedia opportunities. And fourth, on the print side, we are implementing processes to measure and continually improve the quality and performance of our products, particularly labels.
P+P: What would people be surprised to learn about you?
JOB: Not a surprise, but my family is very high priority. I've been married for 44 years to Sue. We have three great kids, who are married to people we like, and we have six grandkids that are a joy. My personal bucket list starts with skiing at every ski resort in the U.S. There are 120 mountain resorts on my list, and I've skied 68 of them. I don't intend to stop until I ski them all. Don't ask me my favorite. I'm a flatlander from Illinois, and they're all great to me.