One of the major issues with the running of small to medium (SME) sized businesses is that there is an over reliance on the owner – frequently they have a hand in just about everything; they work in sales, production, estimating/quoting, HR, operations, finance and marketing. Ascent Partners principal, Richard Rasmussen believes they work in the business, but not on the business.

80 employees are shown the door as rescuers walk away from the iconic company. Book printer Brown Prior Anderson picks up the customer list and what’s left of the brand.

“If the EGM was held today, the result would be completely different,” said Andrew Price, PaperlinX shareholder activist as he prepared for the first Sydney meeting of disaffected investors on Monday. He was referring to the company meeting in March where he lost a bid to oust the current chairman by as little as two percent of the votes.

Three weeks ago an unknown bidder put a highly conditional non-binding indicative offer for the purchase of PMP, the region’s largest printing company. Today Anthony Karam, CEO of label and ticketing printer TMA, is identified as the mystery bidder.

Printing Industries is calling on local print houses to participate in a 15-country survey covering the role print plays in everyday life. Companies are being asked not only to directly take part, but also to pass the survey on to their customers to help capture the broadest range and greatest number of responses.

No matter how well your contracts are designed and how active your accounts department, there will come a time when a customer’s account becomes overdue. This is not the moment to hesitate, says Roger Mendelson—it’s time to call in the professionals.

With only one day to go, drupa 2012 crowds are definitely thinning out but some areas are showing no sign of letting up in vitality and buzz. Big orders are still flowing, such as Pitney Bowes first Intellijet 20 press – an HP T 300 clone – to a Mexican customer and a $3.5 million Mailstream line to Switzerland.

Australian book printing companies will benefit from agreement on the introduction of the Book Industry Speed to Market initiative, according to Printing Industries Association of Australia (Printing Industries).

Printing Industries is encouraging all small to medium printers to apply for a Enterprise Connect Business Review and gain an independent assessment of their business. One company already benefitting from the process is Theo Pettaras’ Digitalpress, which has seen a 15% increase in productivity.

One of Australia’s leading innovation practitioners and thinkers, Alan Ryan, will be the keynote speaker at printing industry innovation forums to be held in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. Ryan is the executive director of the Hargraves Institute, an Australian ‘think tank’ organisation renowned for sharing its innovation knowledge, tools and techniques to create successful businesses.

HP Indigo has a long established lead in the use of liquid toner, but at drupa three new contenders emerged to challenge; Océ, Xeikon and Landa Printing. They all use different forms of the same technology; nano-sized pigment particles suspended in liquid. Of the three the Océ InfiniStream looks set to come to market first.

Few would argue that getting the right people employed in a business is not one of, or the most fundamental component/s to an operation’s success. Ascent Partners principal, Richard Rasmussen believes one of the major heartaches in running a business is managing the people component.

Addressing the mid-drupa press gathering, drupa President Bernard Schreier revealed that 170,000 visitors had passed through the turnstiles; an expected drop from the same time in 2008 of 20%. However, there is no doubt that purse strings have loosened and many millions of dollars in sales are being made.

DES will be showcasing its latest technology at The Digital Show in Melbourne later this month, with the company set to demonstrate the new generation spectrographic equipment, Chromajet photo-papers, and fine art papers it is now supplying to the Australian marketplace.

At least four and up to ten HP Indigo 10000 digital presses are headed this way following an impressive sign up by local printers for the new digital engines. Currie Group is expecting a bumper number of presses to go into Australia and NZ as soon as they become available in 2013.