Listen Here (4 min):
by Bill Prettyman, CEO of Wise
Have you ever considered how creativity impacts your business, your clients, and the print industry as a whole? Without innovation, we wouldn’t have advancements like inkjet printing, digital label press innovations for short-run and personalized applications, or AI-driven data analysis for targeted marketing.
Creativity is essential for the growth of our businesses and ourselves both personally and professionally. However, in the hustle of daily operations, we often neglect to harness our creative potential. Nurturing creativity requires us to pause, step back from our routines, and dedicate time to brainstorming, collaborating, and strategizing.
Here are three reasons to prioritize creativity in your business in 2025.
1. Strengthen Customer Relationships
If we can continually solve our customers’ challenges and help them win their business opportunities, we will build better customer relationships. We see this every day at Wise.
For instance, one automotive dealer was finding too many keystroke errors in the entry of its automotive inspections. When the distributor brought this to our attention, we didn’t just tweak the form. We suggested a completely new type of form instead. Rather than require the technician to remove his (or her) gloves and write in the condition of each area of the inspection, we suggested using a completely different type of form instead—one in a checklist style with red boxes = “needs repair,” yellow boxes = “will soon need repair,” and green boxes = “acceptable.” This allowed each technician to work more quickly and eliminated keystroke errors in the system.
By taking the time to step back and work with the distributor to come up with a creative solution, we were able to deepen the relationship with that distributor and help that distributor deepen its relationship with the customer at the same time.
(Read the whole case study here.)
2. Foster a Positive Workplace Culture
Emphasizing creativity within our customer-focused businesses contributes to a healthier workplace culture. When we cultivate a vibrant culture, our teams thrive, and in turn, they do an exceptional job for our clients.
One example of this comes through Wise’s embrace of lean. Lean manufacturing is a production philosophy that requires intensive employee involvement. Lean requires bringing teams together to analyze processes and brainstorm ideas to minimize waste by streamlining processes and eliminating non-value-added activities to improve efficiency and enhance overall productivity. We’ve been doing it here at Wise for years!
With lean, we “lean” into our team members to be creative. As they work together, they begin to see the results in their own jobs and schedules. As they see the benefits of their own creativity, this, in turn, inspires them even more. Plus, as they see us implementing their suggestions, this also makes them more content and fulfilled at work. It’s one of the reasons we have such low turnover.
All of this has significant benefits for our customers, too. Low turnover means more experienced customer service people, more experienced and focused press operators, and more experienced and motivated team members. Higher levels of efficiency have also resulted improved lead times. At a time when our competitors had lead times of five to 10 days, for example, one of our plants got their lead times down to three days. Another plant was able to bring its employee turnover down to almost zero.
All because of creativity!
(Learn more about our lean commitment here.)
3. Motivate and Inspire Others
Creativity not only benefits us but inspires those around us. Think about the excitement generated by the innovations in the print industry. Here at Wise, we vividly remember witnessing our first digital press and recognizing it as the future of printing. Now, we are embracing new and exciting applications for our HP 6K Digital Label Press. At the recent ASB Summit, for example, we showed off samples of our Mosaic capability. When distributors saw the samples, you should have seen their eyes get wide! Our creativity sparked theirs! Now our ASB distributor customers are taking those creative ideas to their customers.
What began as inspiration has evolved into a significant advancement for our business and our clients.
Elevate Your Business through Creativity
Every time we apply creativity in the workplace, we distinguish ourselves from the competition, enhancing our reputation in the eyes of our customers. This benefits our customers and makes our business better, too.
How could prioritizing creativity elevate your business in the upcoming year?
