Repeat Business

1. The Champion

Dean Truitt, chief executive officer of Dayton, Ohio-based WorkflowOne, is not letting any industry obstacles stand in the way of his company's success. The proof is in the big list as WorkflowOne continues to hold the top position.

Over the last year, the company improved its financial earnings. Adjusted EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) increased by 27 percent, margins were up 58 percent and unlevered cash flow increased by 49 percent.

Truitt attributes this uptick to transformation efforts. For the past two years, the WorkflowOne team has been transforming its business to position the company to thrive in the future and to better serve customers. Specifically, WorkflowOne's focus has been on improving its customer service model, changing its sales go-to-market approach, increasing the efficiency of its national manufacturing and distribution network, growing partnerships with strategic trade printers and eliminating waste.

"Our industry is undergoing gut-wrenching change and successful printing companies must continuously and quickly adapt. It starts with clearly understanding today's customer needs and anticipating future needs," Truitt explained. "Additionally, understanding how your strengths map to customer requirements and clearly defining who you want to be. While at the same time, we need to protect the traditional business as it declines, but build and scale the new to address the future."

Looking ahead, WorkflowOne plans to finish what it started. In its quest to drive profitable growth, the company will adopt a team-based, customer centered go-to-market approach. New, innovative solutions and value-added services will be introduced, and significant improvements will be made to information systems and customer facing technologies.

Even in the midst of exciting change, Truitt acknowledged the difficulties defining the last year. For instance, WorkflowOne experienced a decline in revenue reporting annual sales of $662 million compared to the previous year's earnings of $949 million.