In-line, automated card attaching is opening up lucrative new markets.

Play your cards right

Businesses are always seeking new growth opportunities and ways to adapt, enhance and increase the efficiency of their service offering. Right now, that vision is needed more than ever. The pandemic quickly reshaped operational strategies, placing increasing importance on the ability to flex to new markets and streamline operational processes, and we do not see this changing anytime soon. One such opportunity is card attaching.

The card-attaching market continues to evolve. Even as contactless bank cards and pay-by-phone alternatives become more prevalent, new card applications are establishing across the globe, while existing applications remain status quo. Examples include driver’s licenses, health insurance cards, loyalty cards, and solicitation cards, where usage is large in scale and straddles both the transactional and direct marketing worlds.

As the card market has evolved, so too has the technology used to process these applications. Until now, mailers interested in adding card attaching to their service offering faced a dilemma. This was a unique service - a service that required a dedicated kit and specialized, isolated workcell attention. In short, card attaching was an expensive service to run.

Now, the picture is different. The cards themselves are in fact not dissimilar to the insert documents that mailers regularly process, and card attaching increasingly resembles typical mailing applications. BlueCrest has therefore developed the market’s first card-attaching system that sits in-line as an integrated element of the mail processing workflow.

By having a non-dedicated system, customers are able to run both card applications and most non-card applications without having to remove any hardware from their machine. Not having to spend hours changing over between jobs saves operators precious time and increases productivity.

This workflow integration and automation is key. Effectively, more work can now be taken into the established mailing workcell rather than requiring a separate team, and standalone technology, to handle the attaching element of the process. Mailers that were perhaps operating only at the insertion or sortation stage of card mailings can now offer an end-to-end solution. Equally, organizations that have never offered a card mailing or attaching service before can do so cost-effectively, adding the functionality to their existing workflow.

The post-pandemic business climate is encouraging organizations to eliminate risk from their operation. Businesses are becoming leaner and investing to improve efficiency by eliminating offline and stand-alone processes. Here, integration is critical. Card attaching becomes an automated, in-line, and efficient service when demand is there, and the system can easily be switched off or swapped out when not required. It’s this “swiss-army knife” approach – use what you need, when it’s needed – that is appealing.

Global interest in a unique solution

We are seeing major interest in our card-attaching solutions from some of the globe’s largest mailers and also from smaller operations wanting to position themselves to take full advantage of new market opportunities. We have developed our card-attaching solutions to meet market demand, allowing our customers take their card fulfillment service offering to the next level.

You can read more about our card-attaching system here. It’s a solution that is capturing the imagination of mailing operations everywhere. Those who play their cards right will capitalize on a market that continues to evolve.