We have audacious plans here at Cimpress and the boldest of them are in technology.
As a world leader in mass customization, we’re building a cutting-edge, shared mass customization platform (MCP) that allows us to offer products that can be personalized by an individual customer and manufactured on demand: easily, with great quality, and at affordable prices.
In other words, we’re thinking big. And big thoughts mean exciting things for those working in technology. Here are seven of them:
1. We are a technology-first organization.
We currently employ over four hundred software and manufacturing engineers. We’ve built our foundation on the belief that software and production technology can be harnessed to aggregate enormous numbers of small orders into a high volume production flow. In doing so, we break the tradeoff customers traditionally have had to make between the benefits of mass production and the personal relevance of customized products.
Every year since 1999, we’ve invested at least ten percent of our revenues into technology and development, including $176 million in our last fiscal year. In the next few years alone, we’ll be investing several hundred more million to greatly advance our proprietary computer integrated manufacturing technologies.
2. We’re building a platform that works for the world.
Our work in technology and manufacturing happens across cultures and our mass customization platform has a global footprint. It serves more than 16 million customers annually in more than 130 countries around the world. And we’re still expanding.
3. Our work is challenging and rewarding.
We excel at producing small – and personal – individual orders, yet doing so with the reliability, quality and affordability of mass production. Making this happen requires incredibly complex and sophisticated work.
Over the next few years, we plan build a shared mass customization platform. We say shared because the Cimpress MCP will aggregate the production volumes of the Cimpress portfolio of brands. That means customers around the world access to a broader portfolio of products, a greater range of selection and even better quality than they ever have before, no matter which of our brands they purchase from.
The process of building this MCP is unique and very challenging. But it will also be very rewarding as more and more customers are empowered to make personalized, tangible connections in the ways that matter most to them.
4. We’re leading the way.
When you work at Cimpress, you work for the global leader of mass customization and a company that that excels in engineering and computer-integrated manufacturing. With over 20 years of innovation behind us, and so much more ahead, we’re leading the way in how technology and manufacturing work together. We’re breaking new ground and we’re staying at the front of the pack.
5. We’re the right size…
Robert Keane started Cimpress in a one-bedroom apartment in Paris in 1995. 20 years later, the company still maintains that entrepreneurial heritage. The only thing that’s changed is our budget.
We plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years in the development of proprietary software and production technology in order to evolve our operational capabilities into our shared mass customization platform. Yet we’re also creating a culture that embraces agile software development and empowering small teams. We maintain the spirit of a start-up with the resources of a larger company: the benefit of big business with a small feel.
6. …but the work we do has tremendous scale.
This past year, we produced 82 million unique products. That’s an incredible amount of impressions we’ve helped to make and it’s also an exciting indicator of the complexity of our work.
Our ability to drive massive volumes of very small individual orders through our software, manufacturing facilities, service operations and supply chain is what makes us unique. Bigger scale results in lower per-unit costs, broader and deeper product lines, higher quality, larger R&D and engineering.
7. We’re just getting warmed up.
We’re at the beginning of our journey and that means there is amazing opportunity to add value to the company development and to get to work with a team that is positioning itself to grow for decades to come.
“The future of mass customization is very promising for those companies that can combine world class capabilities in software and manufacturing,” says Don Nelson, our Chief Operating Officer. Cimpress is committed to developing “our talented corps of engineers and software developers and to make the investments necessary to ensure we remain a world-class engineering organization.”
Ready to join our technology team? See our open positions.
Amy VanHaren is an Employer Brand Specialist based out of the Lexington, Massachusetts office. She is passionate about social media, brand marketing and sharing stories about Cimpress and #LifeinVistaprint. She likes to run along the coast in Maine where she lives and is always on the lookout for an amazing guacamole recipe.