MHC INTERVIEW
Build on What Works: Connecting Digital Communications to Proven Print and Mail
MHC Host
Sharon Jones Malloch, Head of Content Marketing at MHC
Guests
Joe Eremita, Senior Director, Software Product Line Management at BlueCrest
& Kim Cook, VP, Partners and Alliances at MHC
October 6th, 2026
For organizations that generate high volumes of regulated communications in healthcare, insurance and financial services, print and digital can no longer run as separate worlds. More communications are moving to digital, but print is not going away. What stays in print is no longer the simple, quick-update documents. It’s the more complex, higher-value communications that still have to be accurate and reach the right recipient at the right time with the right message.
In this Expert Insights interview, Joe Eremita, Senior Director, Software Product Line Management at BlueCrest, and Kim Cook, VP, Partners and Alliances at MHC, discuss the partnership between MHC and BlueCrest and how it connects the two sides of that work. MHC NorthStar CCM manages the data, content, workflow and digital delivery, and BlueCrest handles high-volume print and mail production. Together, they give organizations one connected process from data to delivery, without replacing the proven print and mail operations that already work.
“Within two weeks, our intern became proficient and was creating documents and producing output we could use with the MHC tool…that’s just unheard of in the document creation space.”
~ Joe Eremita, Senior Director, Software Product Line Management, BlueCrest
In This Video, You’ll Learn:
- What customers are asking for today, and why print and digital can no longer run as separate worlds.
- Why the documents that stay in print are becoming more complex as more communications move to digital.
- Why more of the work now happens before a communication is printed or sent.
- Why BlueCrest chose MHC NorthStar CCM to fill the document composition gap in its offering.
- How the partnership helps print and mail service providers offer digital and marketing communications.
- What MHC looks for when it chooses a technology partner.
► Follow-up resource: Sharon Malloch’s blog Digital by Default: Why Transactional Print and Marketing Mail Still Matter
Key Takeaways
- Customers want their print and digital communications coordinated, with the same look, feel and message in every channel.
- As simpler documents move to digital, the complex, higher-value documents that stay in print need even more care.
- More of the work now happens before delivery: bringing in the right data, creating and changing content, and managing approvals and compliance, with AI helping to automate those steps.
- Organizations can modernize how they create communications without replacing print and mail infrastructure that already works.
- BlueCrest added MHC NorthStar CCM to complete its data-through-delivery offering, choosing it for how quickly new users can learn it, with a summer intern producing usable documents within two weeks, and for print-ready output that fits into mail production.
- With mail volumes declining, print and mail service providers can use the partnership to offer digital and marketing communications and take on new work faster.
Meet the Host and Guests
HOST
Sharon Jones Malloch
Head of Content Marketing
at MHC
Read the bio
Sharon leads content marketing at MHC, overseeing strategies that fuel sales and demand generation. With more than a decade of experience in customer communications, Sharon brings deep insight into customer pain points, industry trends, and the critical role of solutions in managing regulatory communications. Before joining MHC, she honed her marketing expertise at Doxim, Messagepoint, and OpenText.
GUEST
Joe Eremita
Senior Director, Software Product Line Management at BlueCrest
Read the bio
Joe Eremita is Senior Director, Software Product Line Management at BlueCrest, a global provider of mail processing, inserting and automation solutions for financial services, healthcare and government organizations. He has more than 20 years of experience in print and mail software, most of it at Pitney Bowes in engineering, solution architecture, sales and product management roles. At BlueCrest, he manages the software product portfolio and works directly with clients on their print and mail operations. In this conversation, Joe shares what BlueCrest’s customers are asking for as more communications move to digital, and why BlueCrest chose to partner with MHC.
GUEST
Kim Cook
VP, Partners and Alliances at MHC
Read the bio
Kim Cook is VP, Partners and Alliances at MHC, where she is expanding MHC’s network of independent software vendors, systems integrators and technology partners, and shaping its channel strategy across regulated industries. She brings more than a decade of experience building partnerships in customer communications management, including strategic alliance leadership roles at OneShield Software, Nagarro and Objectiva Software Solutions. In this conversation, Kim explains why BlueCrest is a natural fit for MHC and what MHC looks for as it builds its partner ecosystem.
Want to Read Instead of Watching the Video?
Transcript edited lightly for readability (filler words and false starts removed). Each question below sits in its own accordion.
Q1: What Are Customers Asking for That They Weren't Asking for Five Years Ago?
Sharon: Joe, let’s start with you. I know BlueCrest works with organizations that manage high-volume regulated communications across industries like healthcare, insurance and financial services. When you talk to those customers today, what are they asking for that they weren’t asking for five years ago?
Joe: We specialize in the print and mail production space, but many of our clients do much more than just printing and mailing. Customer communications is a multichannel activity these days, and linking digital communications with the physical is an important part of what they’re asking for, and what they’re being asked to do.
Q2: How Is Digital by Default Changing Print and Digital Communications?
Sharon: There is a change happening that makes this conversation particularly timely. In July of this year, the SEC proposed Regulation E-Delivery, which would essentially make electronic delivery the default for many investor communications while still preserving paper on request. I wanted to hear your take on this and what you think firms should be preparing for.
Joe: Our clients can’t operate completely separate worlds anymore. The physical and digital have to be coordinated and connected. There’s a transition, through some regulations and just trends, where a lot of documents are moving toward a digital world. But there will always be both, and they need to be managed in a similar way, with a similar look and feel. The end client result is important. At the same time, those clients are looking to modernize their infrastructure and workflows to support both digital and physical mail.
Joe: As clients move to digital as the default, there is going to be a mix. The challenge, of course, is that printing gets more complicated. What’s left in the print world is no longer the simple, quick-update documents. It’s the more complex, higher-value documents. They still need to be managed carefully, they still need to be accurate, they still need to be impactful, and they still need to get to the right recipient at the right time with the right message. That applies to both digital and physical, but it’s becoming more important on the physical portion that remains.
Sharon: So there’s a separation, with the more complex documents staying with print and the simpler documents going to digital?
Joe: That certainly is one of the trends we see. Communications that are simpler are much easier to move to digital. Those that are more involved and more complex are staying physical, in print and mail.
Q3: How Is the Work Before Delivery Becoming More Complex?
Sharon: When I listen to what you’re describing, it sounds like the challenge isn’t just how the communication gets delivered. There’s a lot more happening before that point: bringing in the right data, creating and changing content, managing approvals and compliance, and increasingly using AI to automate some of that work. Do you see that complexity in your work today?
Joe: Yes. The complexity of those documents and how they get created is increasing: the right data, the right content, the right communication. AI is becoming a way to automate a lot of those processes. In physical mail production, there are a lot of opportunities for automation that weren’t there years ago, and we keep innovating in that space to make it more efficient to operate and print mail.
Joe: But that goes across the entire customer communications ecosystem, from where the data comes from, to how the documents are created, all the way through delivery across multiple channels. How easy it is to be flexible, make updates and handle a wide variety of input makes a big difference for our clients. Onboarding and taking on new work is one of the bigger challenges our clients share with us. Being able to do that quicker and easier, with fewer resources, is an important part of keeping their businesses profitable.
Q4: Why Did BlueCrest Partner with MHC for Document Composition?
Sharon: A lot of that complexity is moving upstream. Is that what led BlueCrest to look at offering modernized CCM capabilities to customers? Did you already have some of that, or what drove the decision to look for a partner?
Joe: A little bit of our history is important here. BlueCrest used to be part of Pitney Bowes, and Pitney Bowes offered a variety of solutions in both the physical and digital communication space. When we spun off from Pitney Bowes, there were some components we left behind. We have always been known as the end-to-end provider. Our tagline is “from data through delivery.”
Joe: One of the things missing from that end-to-end story was a powerful document creation engine, which MHC provides. One of the important aspects of the MHC tool is how quick and easy it is to use for clients who need to onboard work quickly. And for our use cases, the print-ready output it produces is already very efficient and fits into the physical mail workflow easily. There are more reasons, but those are the two main reasons we chose to partner with MHC.
Sharon: You also mentioned a story about one of your interns and their experience. Can you tell us about that?
Joe: Early on, when we were doing an evaluation, we had a summer intern with a product manager background, not an engineering background. They were tasked with evaluating a variety of composition engines and tools. Within two weeks, this person became proficient and was creating documents and producing output we could use with the MHC tool. Throughout the rest of the internship, they never achieved document creation with any of the other tools.
Joe: It really spoke to how easily someone without a lot of background, someone young to the industry, could pick up the tool. It was intuitive, and they were able to learn it and produce results within two weeks. That’s just unheard of in the document creation space up to now.
Sharon: That’s a great testimonial, because we pride ourselves on ease of use and on simplifying complexity. You also mentioned our accessibility, building accessibility in during composition rather than having to fix documents afterward. What are your views on those capabilities?
Joe: So many of our clients, particularly our government clients, have started insisting on accessibility requirements, particularly for digital communications. The fact that we can offer that to the clients who require it, in addition to the printing and mailing we already do, makes it that much more powerful.
Q5: What Made BlueCrest a Natural Partner for MHC?
Sharon: Kim, when Joe describes everything happening upstream, you can see where MHC fits in and how the two technologies complement each other. From your view, what made BlueCrest such a natural partner for MHC?
Kim: I’d like to weigh in on what Joe said earlier. Having been in customer communications my entire career, the MHC platform just simplifies so much, and I’m glad BlueCrest recognized that and decided to work with MHC. What really resonated with me is how the goals of the two organizations complement each other. We’re not ripping out a printing process to go digital. It’s a complementary process. BlueCrest has deep expertise in physical production and delivery.
Kim: The other thing we have in common is that we’re targeting the same verticals: insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services. So we can bring our mutual customers much more modern CCM, with a great data layer, AI assistance, workflow governance capabilities and personalization.
Q6: What Should People Understand When They See the End-to-End Workflow?
Sharon: That point about large regulated organizations not having to rip out print and mail infrastructure that’s working for them today is key. Joe, you’ve been working with MHC to demonstrate the end-to-end process, including at events we’re attending together. When someone sees that workflow, what do you hope becomes clear about how the two technologies work together?
Joe: I hope ease of use becomes a key factor, and how naturally it fits into a workflow. More than half of our clients are print and mail service providers. They need to offer additional capabilities to do more business with their customers, so being able to offer digital as well as physical print and mail is important.
Joe: One of the things I’m trying to highlight is this whole notion of truly end to end, from data through delivery, where BlueCrest solutions are integrated and work seamlessly from one to the next. We’re working hard to eliminate the interaction points so it’s all automated. We’re hoping to convey this notion of automated assurance from end to end. You feed data in one end and communications come out the other, whether that’s mail in your mailbox or a message in your inbox.
Kim: Regardless of the channel.
Q7: What Becomes Easier for Organizations When the Two Environments Work Together?
Sharon: If we step back and look at this from an organizational perspective, what else is going to become easier to implement?
Kim: These days, the business users are the ones who have the intelligence, and they’re the ones who want to write the rules. With a tool like NorthStar CCM, business users can manage communication changes without depending on IT. I think that’s a big component.
Joe: That ties in very nicely with our initiatives. We talk about preparing print streams for printing and inserting without needing IT. It’s a very similar story. IT resources have gotten scarce. One of our initiatives over the last five years has been to migrate to SaaS-based cloud platforms, because our clients no longer want to manage and be the IT integrators of these solutions. That’s another great fit between our two solutions, being cloud native, or on-premises if you still want that. The shift to cloud-based SaaS makes integration easier and reduces the IT burden, so business users have control over the outcomes of their work.
Kim: I’d also add that AI-assisted capabilities increase the speed and accuracy of content creation, which makes it a lot more efficient, while still staying within the appropriate governance.
Sharon: MHC is a very forward-facing company when it comes to AI, and this is an area where our mutual customers can grow with us as we build out those capabilities.
Q8: What Does the Partnership Mean for Print and Mail Service Providers?
Sharon: I want to turn specifically to print and mail service providers, since they’re a large part of your market. If PSPs are listening and thinking about communications across print and digital channels, what opportunity does this partnership give them, Joe?
Joe: In the print and mail service provider world, as we all know, mail volumes are declining. So they’re looking for other value to offer their clients, and many of those that are surviving also offer digital communications. These service providers range across our traditional verticals, financial services, healthcare, insurance and government, although some of them specialize.
Joe: They’re also moving beyond transactional communications into marketing communications. That’s where coordination between digital and physical becomes even more important, because they can start measuring their return on investment, and there’s value in a consistent campaign across different channels. Our print and mail service providers are doing more than print and mail, and that’s important to their business. A lot of them know us for the printing and mailing side, so this partnership lets us help them in other parts of their business too.
Sharon: So if they already have digital capabilities that are siloed and fragmented, this partnership can help coordinate and consolidate all of that for them?
Joe: Exactly. We hear the same message across all our clients, but it’s even more amplified with service providers, because their need to onboard work quickly is the greatest of all. Week to week and day to day, they don’t know what’s coming at them, and their value is being able to take anything and deliver those communications for their customers. Being nimble and able to turn around new documents quickly, whether physical, digital or both, is even more important in that space than it is for a traditional financial services, insurance or healthcare organization.
Q9: What Does MHC Look for in a Technology Partner?
Sharon: Kim, zooming out from BlueCrest, this is part of a broader partnership strategy for MHC. When you’re looking at potential partners, what are you looking for, and what tells you a company is a really good fit?
Kim: As we build out our partner ecosystem at MHC, we’re not just looking to exchange logos on each other’s websites. We want partners who provide customer value when we work together. We look for partners whose capabilities complement ours so we can create value for our mutual customers. Strong partners bring expertise, technology and relationships that extend what we can accomplish together. We want partnerships where both organizations can address a broader customer problem together. BlueCrest is a great example, because our technologies complement each other and we’re still part of the communication process.
Sharon: You’re more than the sum of your parts.
Q10: What is the One Thing Viewers Should Take Away From This Conversation?
Sharon: As we wrap up, if there’s one thing you’d want our viewers to take away from this conversation, what would it be? Joe, let’s start with you.
Joe: The one thing I want to stress is that BlueCrest truly is the end-to-end provider in the print and mail space, and that now includes expertise in document composition through MHC. Our primary goal is to automate the preparation of documents for printing and mailing, and that now extends to helping clients with digital communications. Through MHC, we have a new link in that chain that I think our clients will get a lot of value out of.
Kim: We’re very excited to partner with BlueCrest. Providing value for our mutual customers is what we’re looking for in our partner ecosystem. We are trying to simplify complexity, and with NorthStar CCM, we’re certainly doing that.
Sharon: What stands out to me from our conversation is that it’s not about print versus digital. It’s about connecting the two: modern communication creation upstream, and proven production and delivery downstream. That way, organizations can modernize without disrupting operations that already work well today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Do Print and Digital Communications Need to Work Together?
Customers receive communications through both channels, and they expect the same look, feel and message in each. Joe Eremita explains that BlueCrest’s clients can no longer run print and digital as separate worlds. As more communications move to digital, the documents that stay in print are often the most important ones, so they need to come from the same data, content and processes as the digital versions.
What Does the MHC and BlueCrest Partnership Offer?
The partnership lets BlueCrest offer MHC NorthStar CCM to its customers with high-volume print and mail operations. MHC NorthStar CCM handles data, content, workflow and digital delivery, and BlueCrest handles physical production and mail. Together, they cover the full process from data to delivery, in print and digital channels.
What Kinds of Documents Are Staying in Print?
Joe Eremita sees simpler communications moving to digital most easily, while more involved, complex documents are staying in print and mail. Those documents still need to be accurate and reach the right recipient at the right time with the right message, so managing them carefully matters even more.
Do Organizations Need to Replace Their Print and Mail Infrastructure to Modernize Customer Communications?
No. The MHC and BlueCrest approach is built to work alongside print and mail operations that are already in place. MHC NorthStar CCM modernizes how communications are created and managed upstream, and its print-ready output fits into existing BlueCrest mail production workflows.
Why Did BlueCrest Choose MHC NorthStar CCM?
BlueCrest needed a document composition engine to complete its “data through delivery” offering. Joe Eremita cites two main reasons for choosing MHC: how quickly new users can learn the platform, and print-ready output that fits easily into physical mail workflows. During BlueCrest’s evaluation, a summer intern was producing usable documents in MHC NorthStar CCM within two weeks.
How Does the Partnership Help Print and Mail Service Providers?
With mail volumes declining, many print and mail service providers are adding digital and marketing communications to stay competitive. The partnership gives them a way to offer coordinated print and digital communications and to onboard new client work faster, which matters most in a business where they don’t know what work is coming next.
Can Business Users Manage Communication Changes Without IT?
Yes. With MHC NorthStar CCM, business users can manage communication changes without depending on IT. Both MHC and BlueCrest also support cloud deployment, which reduces the integration work IT teams have to take on, and MHC NorthStar CCM can also be deployed on-premises.
See How It Works
Want to see how MHC NorthStar CCM connects communication creation with your print and mail operations? Get a Personalized Demo >
