“It’s all above the forces.” Speaking at EFI Connect 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Guy Gecht took the stage to deliver Star Wars-inspired business advice for the document imaging industry. With more than 20 years tenure as the CEO for EFI, Gecht shared what he believes can help carry your business through 2016 and beyond.

Bet on changes in market forces to accelerate.

Nothing in business ever stands still, that much is self-evident. What isn’t always self-evident, is that change is always rapidly accelerating. “Because we’re connected, trends come a lot faster…Things happen very quickly,” said Gecht.

To illustrate this point, Gecht used an example from media. According to his presentation, it took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 38 million. Television took 13 years to reach that same mark. Facebook? Two years.

“Not only are the strong forces getting stronger, [but also] the weak forces are getting weaker at an accelerating rate,” Gecht said.

And the strong force he’s hinting at is digital printing and online services, while the weak force is analog printing and traditional, unautomated processes. This leads us to…

When facing a stronger force, use the Judo strategy.

Another way to phrase Gecht’s second piece of advice: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Instead of being stuck in a traditional print mindset and fighting against what he believes to be the stronger force of digital and online, use their momentum in your favor.

“Things are moving to the cloud, every device will be connected, everybody is holding a mobile phone, documents are going online…This is a strong force,” Gecht explained. “And I think we’ve got to face it; the online force is stronger than the print force, and it took a lot away from print.”

So what do you do? Gecht says, “The same tools that apply in Judo apply in business. When you’re weaker, you’ve got to be nimble. If you stand still, they’re going to get you.”

Gecht urged the audience to investigate integrating the advantages of online into your business, such as “web to print” highly customizable jobs that are only feasible through digital printing.

Take the short runs road to long profits.

Gecht said, “It’s very consistent, I would say, when I talk to customers. When they do short-run, when it’s personalized, it’s high profit. They like the idea that they get many jobs that are short, because the jobs can be priced higher because there is special attention.”

“Long-run is much more competitive. It’s difficult to differentiate. It takes more time to setup,” said Gecht. “The world is moving to be more personalized anyway. We’re all used to personalizing our news, our music, our TV…We don’t like to consume a generic product anymore.”

Look beyond paper.

If you want to grow your business, you should be looking at more than paper, says Gecht: “There is a wisdom in business that says you always want to expand your TAP, or Target Addressable Market. Why? Because there are new forces and commoditization, and you want to appeal to a bigger market with bigger products.”

“Printing used to be all about paper…but now it’s starting to change. Some paper is still selling, like the catalog, documents, and valuable data…but if you really want to increase your TAP, you look beyond paper.”

How do you make that happen? Gecht explains, “Inkjet is really an enabling force to do that, because inkjet is the only printing technology that doesn’t touch the material. So when you want to print on many materials, you gotta use inkjet. There’s no other solution if you want to print on a variety of materials”

Don’t touch what you can automate.

Gecht said, “The future is the only thing you want to touch when it comes to the printing process. Anything else, getting the job, sending it to the printers, packing it, cutting it, shipping it…you don’t want to touch.”

“The online world gave us the capability to go away from the manual [workflow]. Us humans sometimes make mistakes. We’re not built to repeat a job all day…and we cost more and more money every year.”

“You want to get people to do the thinking, and software to do the automation. And with [EFI’s] productivity suites, that’s exactly what we’re aiming at. Non-automated workflow is a trap. It’s a profit trap, and we want to avoid it.”