Ep: 1 // Anthony Napolitano, HP Instant Ink // Leading subscriptions services with innovation

Ep: 1 // Anthony Napolitano, HP Instant Ink // Leading subscriptions services with innovation

Air date: August 21, 2020

Chris welcomes Anthony Napolitano, VP and GM of HP Instant Ink. Anthony runs the services and solutions business for HP, an organization inside of print to develop alternative business models or services for the consumer segment. Instant Ink was developed 6 years ago as a disruptive subscription ink service where customers can purchase pages, not the printer ink. The program is connected to the cloud to ensure that customers will be shipped ink before they run out.

Anthony notes, our genesis of the program was to solve two pain points around printing. First, the costs are too high and secondly, you run out in the middle of a job. They were listening to customers’ issues and delivered a solution that directly addressed the customers’ pain points.

“… the transformations typically haven’t been led by the incumbent. I think it really started with a catalyst, that says we need to go figure this out. And typically you don’t hit it out of the park the first try. You need some runway to fail.”

– Anthony Napolitano

Anthony and Chris talk about how customer experience has transformed, in part thanks to rapid digital transformation. They discuss insights about how customers’ decisions may be non-intuitive to marketers. Often, companies go to market with experiences based on their own perspective, but to get real results and offer value to your clients, it’s essential to break out of the traditional approach and experimentation can be a nimble and cost effective way to achieve this.

Top takeaways include:

  • Assessing your business model against customers pain points
  • Working with the C-suite to gain support and acquire investment
  • Integrating test and learn culture into your DNA
  • Using pilot experiments to build case for further investment


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