Change: Not always easy, sometimes necessary

Back in the '70s, O'Brien Brothers Business Forms, Inc., was perking along, selling and producing the multi-part business forms - bills of lading, for example - that ate countless trees and filled uncounted filing cabinets in nearly every business.

Today, Bartlett-based OBRIEN Document Solutions, Inc., provides electronic bill presentment and payment services for companies as large as PepsiAmericas, and a marketing management service that allows clients to produce personalized, one-off educational and promotional materials.

The switch from old-line offset printing to electronic services wasn't easy, but it is the type of change that other businesses perhaps should consider: The transition has allowed the OBRIEN to prosper in today's Internet-driven world, says CEO Kevin O'Brien.

"We wouldn't be here today. The company would have folded, if we hadn't changed," O'Brien says.

Here's the tale:

"We had a good business until 1994-95," O'Brien recalls. That's when O'Brien became part of an industry committee charged with looking at the future of the forms business.

The resulting study "opened my eyes," O'Brien says. "It was very bleak. We hadn't seen the decline in our business, but I knew (the study) was right. We had to figure out what to do to stay in printing and the transactional business," where the company had a reputation and expertise.

O'Brien's choice was digital printing. He began "looking for an opportunity to migrate rather than wait for people to take business away from us."

What came was a connection with Lanier copiers, a brand of RicohAmericas Corp., West Caldwell, N.J., and at the time one of the early entrants into digital reproductions.

O'Brien had found the future, but others - including brother Pat, who owned the other half of the company - weren't so sure. "He was a tough sell. We had a couple of toe-to-toes," O'Brien says.

The sales staff, which O'Brien says had been taking forms orders over the phone, "didn't want to change. Accounting didn't want to change. The margins in old printing were good."

But the decline, when it came, "was faster than we could have imagined," O'Brien says. The switch to a new type of printing and service was assured.

Perhaps surprisingly, the company's years as a traditional offset printing house weren't wasted. "The old business forms skill set - where the paper went, how the work flowed - has been helpful," O'Brien says.

Today, OBRIEN is positioned as an electronics company with two key service offerings: A digital process and the Internet rather than paper and the post office to create and deliver invoices for clients - and, along the way, cut days off the payments process; and an electronics-based marketing service that allows, for example, a sales person to create a brochure-sales sheet specific to the client she is about to visit.

Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@121MarketingResources.com.

© 2009 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.