2023 Wide-Format Innovators: How Image Options Drives Wide-Format Innovation

As a company, we address new opportunities and whether to pursue them by being aware of our core competencies — what we’re good at and what we lack — in relation to the opportunity we’re exposed to. As an example, we focus on print and fabrication, not on digital activations. While that is an opportunity that dovetails with what some of our customers want, we don’t have that expertise. We have to ask, what is the cost to hire a subject matter expert? To educate sales? To build production? How quickly can we build that to offset the costs? But if an opportunity is adjacent, and you’re just missing a small piece to get there, then it makes sense.

WFI: How important is training and team development?

Hite: Most companies do not devote the resources required to properly train and onboard new employees. The typical approach is to hire for a specific position and expect the person to perform well with minimal training or introduction to the rest of the company. Most applicants will tell you, when asked, that they were shown briefly how to do what they were hired to do, worked with someone for maybe a day, and then were expected to do the job.