Bob Anderson, CEO of Prisma, is passionate about many things when it comes to his long-time career in professional services. He especially loves to see organizations and people grow, including those within his own expanding, end-to-end marketing supply chain management and logistics company. But even beyond the strong and talented employee base Anderson continues to cultivate at Prisma, he’s also resolute about encouraging the next generations of professionals and future entrepreneurs, so his business and marketing outlook is always positive — especially when looking at 2024.
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“I speak at Brophy, Arizona State University, South Mountain Community College, Scottsdale Community College and Northern Arizona University,” Anderson says. “I talk to young people about about entrepreneurship and starting their own business.” The ingredients of which, according to Anderson, are somewhat simple but crucial when it comes to fostering business longevity.
Taking chances
“I think there’s a lot of chances for you if you just work on the art of business and look under the lens that all businesses run the same,” he says.
Anderson adds that as long as you treat people well, pay your bills on time and “take care of your customers,” success is within your grasp as an entrepreneur.
These elements of running a successful business remain important today and will continue to do so — particularly for professional services companies as 2024 approaches, according to Anderson. This is especially vital for companies with gaps in their marketing supply chains, those seeking to bolster their marketing efforts and those desiring to scale their business.
“The trends for our business and some marketing services and marketing supply chains business that we’re in will take on a tighter role helping clients grow their business,” Anderson says. “Or if they don’t have the staff, we’ll pick up that slack. That’s what we’ve been doing the last 20 years, is helping them grow and scale without having to add people.”
Remaining at the forefront of technology and advancements within the marketing sector has enabled Prisma to continually evolve and navigate shifts in consumer demand.
“We’ve really used technology with dokshop to accommodate our growth and help manage services for our clients,” Anderson says.
Prisma’s proprietary dokshop™ grants businesses access to a variety of custom products to help with branding, management of marketing production and tracking fulfillment and inventory — all online in a user-friendly format.
“You can build your own ads on Ad Builder. You can download anything you need for a wall graphic, anything for direct mail piece. We can do the direct mail and mail around your location, front desk, back office and housekeeping in the hotel space,” Anderson explains. “Anything along those lines we support. It’s really field market execution.”
Embracing evolution
As with other professional services organizations, part of Prisma’s growth and evolution has intersected with artificial intelligence (AI) — something which has some industry leaders concerned, others scratching their heads and still others, excited for what’s to come.
As for professional services in particular, a recent Reuter report stated that “not only is artificial intelligence expected to be one of the biggest drivers of professional change over the next five years, with 67% saying AI will have a transformational or high impact, but many said they believe that change will have a positive effect on their own careers.”
For Prisma, because AI has not only been introduced but also utilized for several years, Anderson — similar to Reuter’s positive 67% feedback — believes AI will continue to benefit professional services.
“We’ve been in AI for all of our presses and all of our equipment has a lot of self-learning aspects,” he says. “It’s something that we are familiar with. I think it’s going to help our team members with analytics and data, and business intelligence for our clients. I think we’re going to be way quicker at it, and we’re going to get them a quicker ROI.”
Beyond the impact of technology and technological self-learning, human creativity remains vital in the advancement and competitiveness of professional services. In fact, the creativity of Prisma’s team continues to be an essential component for the company, contributing to a 2023 “Best in Show” designation at the recent Americas Print Awards for work with their client Urban Electric’s “The Current.”
“[The project] used every facet of every piece of equipment,” Anderson says. “Every person in our company touched it in some way, shape or form. It’s a spectacular catalog, and it’s not a typical catalog. It has several catalogs inside a catalog. It’s by far, the most challenging thing we’ve ever done in what I consider the manufacturing space.”
As for the global outlook for professional services heading into 2024 and beyond, predictions remain positive. According to Statista, “Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2028) of 5.81%, resulting in a market volume of $40.18 billion by 2028.”
Optimism in 2024
And for Prisma in 2024, Anderson shares an optimistic posture. The company currently has 400 employees.
“I think I have the very best leadership team I’ve ever had,” Anderson says. “They make a lot of great decisions and I think they are carrying the company forward for me. Looking at acquisitions, we’ve got three going on right now. That too will close before the end of the year. Of course, we have our Nashville location, our Phoenix location, two other strategic locations in the East and one here in Arizona.”
As for where Prisma is today, Anderson says, “I pinch myself sometimes when I look at [where we are]. When I took over the company, with my partner Rod, there were 26 employees!”
