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This paper illustrates how information from CRM systems and other customer inputs are used in print production to enhance customer relations. The results identify three common ways user data is obtained and used focusing on more advanced customized solutions; (1) Data mining of stored customer data, illustrated by a case where transpromo based on purchase patterns are sent to customers, (2) use of pre-stored data depending of e.g. customers' orders, exemplified by production of customized instruction manuals based on customers' orders, and (3) user input in connection to the production, represented by a web-based service providing customers with the opportunity to customize photo books. The identified and illustrated scenarios give good examples of the importance to use these different concepts in the marketing mix to enhance marketing efforts.

In this paper a conceptual model for a social media game will be illustrated. The idea is to find a way to integrate our physical and digital world in a way that will involve the environment around us containing both artifacts and people and become a natural part of our daily lives. We want to show that by integrate ubiquitous information and social media in a game idea, it is possible to create a concept for a social media game application that could be used at a tourist attraction, e.g. a zoo. The value that is received from this application is both educative for the visitors and marketing for the tourist attraction. The conceptual model of the social media game builds upon the foundations of internet of things for the future version of a tourist attraction, such as the Digital Zoo.

This paper reports on a study regarding how vertical integration is used to increase customer relations in the printing industry and illustrates the competitive consequences with vertical integration towards customers. Results show that since direct customers are perceived as more loyal and profitable than advertising agencies and/or print brokers, integration of content creation is common to increase relations with direct customers. However, as direct customers' part of total production is still very small, integration of content creation gives rise to a potentially competitive situation between printing firms and advertising agencies. Printing firms recognized this problem as they try to avoid this competition. Two different approaches to the problem are illustrated. Printing firms either focus on simple jobs that are not of advertising agencies' interest or they isolate these services in a separate firm, and consequently can compete for direct customers and still be a printing firm to advertising agencies.

This paper investigates how company structures, with respect to vertical integration and cooperation, affect the competitive advantages and resource flexibility within the fragmented and highly competitive Swedish printing industry. The results are based on five qualitative case studies and one quantitative survey study. The results demonstrate that vertical integration is widely used and is important to get competitive advantages within the industry. The main reasons are customers call for a full service provider and the need for integrating adjacent activities in the value chain to ensure fast deliveries and steady and appropriate input to production units. However, the findings suggest that due to heavy costs, cooperation is used to increase firms’ resource flexibility to control necessary resources.

This quantitative survey study investigates the degree of vertical integration in the Swedish commercial printing industry and examines the affect of vertical integration on profit. The results show that vertical integration is commonly used both by digital and conventional printing houses. The study concludes that vertical integration is important due to the strategic importance of controlling a large part of the value system. The study indicates that the level of vertical integration has no significant impact on profitability. Nevertheless, one explanation, for the high level of vertical integration, could be the strategic aspect of acquiring possibilities to expand the business., QS 20120315

Franchising has been important in many industries for a long time and organized alliances are a current phenomenon in the Printing Industry, and may be all alternative way for smaller privately owned printing houses to be a part of a larger network to handle rapid changes in the market. The objective of this qualitative case study of three Swedish Organized Alliances is to investigate how companies perceive the importance of organized alliances in the Printing Industry. This study concludes that there are many different opinions about the use, impact and importance of organized alliances in the Printing Industry. However, the partner companies believe that they acquire value by being part of an organized alliance. The most important advantages are joint purchasing, access to national agreements, large scale advantages and partly access to a franchise brand. The results indicate that different kinds of organized alliances fit different companies because of the focus of the alliance and the difference in support and commitment from the central organization. Both central organizations and many partner companies deem the franchise brand as important for national recognition. Nevertheless, the combination of the franchise brand and the local company brand is a way for printing houses to strengthen both on the local and national market. The major disadvantage of being part of all organized alliance is the high costs compared to the benefits, which has given many respondents a reason to consider leaving the organized alliances., QC 20110311

The printing industry is undergoing a lot of structural changes. One way to deal with these changes is by institutional arrangements like hybrid organizations made possible by modern digital communication technologies. The aim of this qualitative case study with four Swedish and four German printing houses is to examine if and how these arrangements are used to lower transaction costs and increase competitive advantages. The results indicate that the companies in this study face the need to integrate for different reasons to increase their competitive advantage. Nevertheless, due to strong competition and to lower their need for investments, the companies in this Study cannot integrate all capacity and resources needed in the production. Due to fear for opportunism, the preferred way is to create cooperation with a few close partners. This suggests that the companies have chosen a hierarchical intuitional arrangement (integration) with a hybrid character (cooperation)., QC 20110311

Having short delivery lead times has been deemed as a major order winner and a way of creating short term competitive advantages. Short delivery lead times are also important when trying to reduce inventory levels. This study of 136 randomly selected Swedish commercial printing houses, investigates the differences between digital printers and conventional printers with respect to the importance of providing short delivery times and having close geographic distances to customers. The study concludes that printing houses, using digital printing, arc active mostly on a regional market, while printing houses using conventional printing are active mainly oil a national market. Further, digital printing contributes to significantly shorter delivery times, which, in general, are deemed important to be kept short. Nevertheless, there are indications of a larger gap, regarding delivery times, between importance and perceived Customer satisfaction among digital printers than among conventional printers., QC 20110311

Print quality and variable data printing are two important topics when discussing digitalprinting and its ability to be a commercially successful printing technology. The aim ofthis paper is to determine the significance of print quality when using variable dataprinting to customize printed matters. In this study three levels of colour print quality andthree levels of personalization; entirely static, personalized with name, and personalizedwith name, text and image, were established. Sample material was obtained by creatingfictitious advertisements in the personalization levels, which were then printed at the printquality levels. A panel of respondents was asked to arrange the fictitious advertisementsin order of preference. At all print quality levels, personalizing with only name led to arather small increase in respondent preference compared to the static advertisements.However, personalizing with name, text and image led to a significant increase inpreference compared to a static or name personalized advertisements. Hence, to attractthe respondents a higher level of personalization should be used. The respondents weremore forgiving towards low print quality when the advertising information waspersonalized. Furthermore, personalization contributes more at lower print quality levels,indicating that print quality is more significant in static printed matters or printed matterswith a low level of personalization.

Even though tough competition favours formation of alliances, competition between partners is difficult to handle. This qualitative case study investigates how a fragmented industry perceives the level of competition with their cooperative partners and the influence of organized alliances. The results indicate that when cooperation between partners is strong, the competition between partners tends to be perceived as weak, which can be a result of the high initial trust needed to cooperate. Thus, printing companies strive for strong cooperation with a few close trustful partners, which makes the competitive situation between these partners weak. The competitive impact of organized alliances is diversified, since the foremost reason for cooperation is to lower and share costs. However, the use of a franchise brand, in addition to the local brand, may strengthen the company’s competitive advantages on a national basis.

In the printing industry overcapacity has resulted in price reductions and decreasing profit margins. These circumstances together with ail increasing demand for short production runs have raised challenges for printing houses. In order to be successful, printing houses need to find ways to differentiate themselves. This Survey Study sets out to investigate: the difference between digital and conventional printers, with respect to (1) the view of the importance of providing short production runs, variable data printing and web interfaces and (2) the difference ill usage of web interfaces and in performance of offering short production runs and (3) the performance of offering variable data. The results indicate that digital printers find it more important to provide variable data printing, short production runs and web interfaces compared to conventional printers. Furthermore, digital printers believe they fulfil the need for short production runs better than conventional printers. Hence, their market conditions seem to differ. As a result, digital printers experience a somewhat lower competition. Furthermore, it seems like digital printers to a greater extent need web interfaces in their business. Moreover, short production runs, variable data printing and the usage of web interfaces is expected to increase. Therefore, it seems like the commercial printing industry will experience an even more challenges ill the near future, a development that to a greater extent will demand the features that digital printers call more easily provide., QC 20190206

Print quality and variable data printing are two important topics when discussing digital printing and its ability to be a commercially successful printing technology. The aim of this paper is to determine the significance of print quality when using variable data printing to customize printed matters. In this study three levels of print quality and three levels of personalization; entirely static, personalized with name, and personalized with name, text and image, were established. Sample material was obtained by creating fictitious advertisements in the personalization levels, which were then printed at the print quality levels. A panel of respondents was asked to arrange the fictitious advertisements in order of preference. At all print quality levels, personalizing with only name led to a rather small increase in respondent preference compared to the static advertisements. However, personalizing with name, text and image led to a significant increase in preference compared to a static or name personalized advertisements. Hence, to attract the respondents a higher level of personalization should be used. The respondents were more forgiving towards low print quality when the advertising information was personalized. Furthermore, personalization contributes more at lower print quality levels, indicating that print quality is more significant in static printed matters or printed matters with a low level of personalization., QC 20141112

Digital printing is used most successfully with a differentiated strategy that delivers high customer value whenprinting short runs or customized printed matters. This qualitative case study of a customer – supplierrelationship aims to identify and analyze how digital printing can be utilized as a business tool in therelationship between a service provider and a customer in a dynamic business environment.The service provider in this case has strategically changed the focus of the company from a production to aservice company with the focus on customer contact. Even though the service provider had an advantage on themarket, they choose to create disruption since they realized that they could not sustain this advantage forever ontheir dynamic market. This was realized even though it meant cannibalizing on their former core business –printing.The study indicates that a hypercompetitive-like behavior is becoming increasingly important to be able tosurvive in the dynamic and changing printing industry. The industry is today influenced by, and competingwith many companies that are not in-industry. By reengineering their products and services and moving fromthe cost-quality arena to timing and know-how it is possible for the service provider to control the outcome ofthe industry in a more successful manor.This study concludes that digital printing is used successfully when the customer’s main objective is not to printat all. Printed material will probably not disappear in a foreseeable future and therefore digital printing mostcertainly will increase its importance as a production technology. In the strive towards a paperless office, digitalprinting is a natural, convenient and profitable way of producing a non-electronic output is digital printing., QC 20100826

Differentiation and adding value to the printed product is regarded as important in the low margin, highlycompetitive commercial printing industry of today. However, there exists a trade-off between the service leveland the price the customer has to pay. This quantitative survey study of 136 commercial printing houses setsout to investigate how they are positioning themselves and how they perceive the demand from the customerswith respect to price, lead time, print quality and flexibility.In summary the results presented in this paper propose that the commercial printing houses perceived a demandfrom customers to provide a commodity product with only small differences between price, lead time, qualityand flexibility. However, the results also indicate that the printing houses want to sell a more differentiatedand customer centric product with focus on flexibility and quality. Although positioning seemed to beindependent of printing technology, it was possible to notice that digital printing houses perceived a lower pricepressure from the market. These results suggest that using digital printing to enhance customer value wassuccessful since the digital printing houses felt that their customers did not have as high demands for low pricesas customers to conventional printing houses., QC 20100826

The fast technological development and the convergence of the media industry have made competition in theprinting industry harder and not only in-industry any longer. This puts great pressure on individualcompanies, and in a climate of rapid change, companies need to respond quickly to external forces in order toremain competitive. To accomplish this many different competitive resources and competences need to bemanaged. This can be achieved either directly by ownership or indirectly by cooperation. This qualitative casestudy sets out to investigate how alliances are used in the dynamic business environment of the printingindustry, with a focus on cooperation in connection with digital printing.The primary reason, for the companies’ cooperation was gaining access to resources to enhance customersatisfaction and retain customer contact. This paper illustrates that alliances and cooperations can be used indifferent ways and being part of an alliance can be regarded as successful and something worth nurturing.Even though alliances can provide competitive advantages, this study also indicates that hypercompetitivebehavior, like being to opportunistic, clearly can have drastic negative effects on an alliance., QC 20100826

Today the printing industry is fragmented and suffers from overcapacity, and printed material is regarded ascommodity products. In this article, corporate strategy owing to the introduction of digital printing technology isstudied. The focus is on companies that made digital printing investments. Differentiation is a strategicapproach that is necessary for digital printing companies to compete successfully. The results show that verticalintegration is a way to ensure appropriate supply to the digital printing unit and to add customer value to theservice. Educating customers is a way to create a market for the value-added products of digital printing., QC 20100826

Adding customer value to products and applications is important to be able to successfully compete usingdigital printing. In this study the perceived satisfaction of added value was explored. It was concluded thatdigital printing does not entirely fulfill the demands that customers have on their printed material, but it wasindicated that digital printing will become more important for producing printed material in the future.Among the critical success factors, time, quality, functionality/possibilities, and price, quality was the factorthat customers deemed most important. This was also the factor that they were least satisfied with in relationto their needs. Time was the only factor that the customers where satisfied or more than satisfied with.Based on the assumption that it is not possible to, realistically, have high demands on all critical success factorsand that there has to be some tradeoff between them, the factors have been summarized and compared usingmean-centered values., QC 20100826

Mejtoft, T., Hedlund, J., Cripps, H., Söderström, U., & Norberg. (2021). Designing call to action: Users' perception of different charateristics. In 34th Bled EConference Digital Support From Crisis To Progressive Change (pp. 405-416). https://doi.org/10.18690/978-961-286-485-9

Fahlman, E., Mejtoft, T., & Cripps, H. (2018, June). Evaluation of push notifications for social media applications [Paper presentation]. Digital Transformation: Meeting the Challenges: conference proceedings: 31st Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia . https://doi.org/10.18690/978-961-286-170-4

Mejtoft, T., Lindmark, T., Söderström, U., & Cripps, H. (2020, June). The user experience of personalized conent [Paper presentation]. 33rd Bled eConference - Enabling Technology for a Sustainable Society, Online. https://press.um.si/index.php/ump/catalog/book/483

Cripps, H., Singh, A. K., Mejtoft, T., & Salo, J. (2020, June). Crowdsourcing through Twitter for innovation [Paper presentation]. 33rd Bled eConference - Enabling Technology for a Sustainable Society, Online. https://press.um.si/index.php/ump/catalog/book/483

Cripps, H., Singh, A., Mejtoft, T., & Salo, J. (2020). The use of Twitter for innovation in business markets. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-06-2019-0349

Mejtoft, T., Cripps, H., Berglund, S., Dlacic, J., & Torbarina, M. (2019, June). Internationalization of students' learning using online technology: Lessons learned [Paper presentation]. Conference proceedings / 32nd Bled eConference Humanizing Technology for a Sustainable Society, Bled, Slovenia. https://doi.org/10.18690/978-961-286-280-0.59

Mejtoft, T., Bahtiri, B., Cripps, H., & Söderström, U. (2017). Use of Image Recognition of Social Media. In ANZMAC 2017 (pp. 271-278). Available here