By the grace of Joan - Print 21 magazine article

Some people make a difference in whatever they do; Joan Grace is one of them. As CEO of PrintNZ, she has transformed the association, built it up, rebranded it and focused its attention towards the future.

Her vitality and vision have made her almost synonymous with the printing industry. She shares her thoughts on the past, present and likely future state of the New Zealand graphic arts with Patrick Howard.

The more things change the more they stay the same. On commissioning a history of PrintNZ in time for its centenary in February next year, Joan Grace is discovering that the pre-occupations of printers today are very much the same as those that worried the industry in the early 20th century; cut-throat pricing, skills shortages, the threat from imports and over capacity of production. While these days much of the industry angst is centred on the consolidation of the industry being driven by the larger groups, such as GEON and Blue Star, fundamentally there is very little difference in today's impacting forces or the responses they evoke from printers.

Even the terminology remains the same with printers then and now complaining about 'price wars' and unfair competition. According to Joan Grace, the market reality remains much the same, with the responsibility for the setting of prices and the conduct of business left with the owners.

"It's easy to use emotive language such 'price wars' but I don't think it is very useful. While there may be a change in the operating and cost structures of the big companies, which will have an impact on the market, price decisions are left up to individual businesses," she says. "I have heard anecdotal evidence of a price war, but I'm not sure if it's all coming from the big groups. People make their own decisions."

Such a down-to-earth response is almost a signature of the charismatic CEO of PrintNZ. In the five years since she took on the top job, combining her roles as CEO of the industry training council and the printing association, she has come to represent a quality of leadership that has engaged not only the association but also the industry as a whole.

Building a broad church
There are few sectors of the New Zealand graphic arts that have not benefited from Joan Grace's exuberant energy and 'can do' approach. On a fundamental level the association has grown from around 350 to over 700 companies during her stewardship. This now represents a significant majority of the graphic arts enterprises in the country and provides an influential bedrock from which to address industry concerns.

At the same time, she has initiated and overseen a refocusing and a rebranding of the association to its current snappy PrintNZ, to reflect the rapid changes affecting the industry. To achieve such an expansion at a time when the industry is undergoing significant consolidation is a remarkable feat but one she explains as "broadening the membership base."

"The changes going on in the industry don't mean that the numbers of businesses are falling, but they are certainly changing. Statistics show that there is a substitution going on. Where a traditional offset printing company may no longer be in business, someone in a Westfield Mall printing t-shirts and cups takes its place.

"It may not be the traditional type of printing but they are all listed under 24120, the Anzac code, and they are joining the association.

"When we refocused the association in 2003 we deliberately adopted the broadest definition of printing to include any business that puts any image on a substrate. This has given rise to many small digital companies, which were looked at strangely by our members at the time but they are now accepted. This is the reality of the industry. We were very sure to keep the word 'print' in our name - but not printing."

Down at the coalface
PrintNZ is embedded in the industry in a way not usually seen for an industry association. Undoubtedly much of the membership support is based on the high level of service the association delivers.

"We provide members with a full range of services and each of them use their own set of these services - some look at the survey report every day for information, others train apprentices, some attend our social functions, some read every word of a submission we write."

Grace came to PrintNZ from a career in government. Much of her early work was on developing policy for funding industry training, an enduring field of interest. Her first engagement with the printing industry came as chief executive of the Printing and Allied Industries Training Council, a post she retained on becoming CEO of the association in 2002. Development of the training role has been integrated to such a degree that, to many in the industry, the two are synonymous - PrintNZ and PrintNZ Training are seen as two sides of the same coin.

This is not something Grace will resile from; training has always been high on her interests. She is currently on the government's tertiary development committee, but is also focused on blue-collar needs.

"I feel passionately about apprenticeship training - we so often deal with people who have had poor experiences with school and low self-esteem in terms of their skills.

"Apprenticeship is a fantastic path for young men - we have close to 90 percent male apprentices - they are given direction, knowledge and skills and qualifications that form the basis of a strong career. In many industries, they are the skills that set them up in business eg plumbers, carpentry, electrical."
Grace's early engagement with the government has delivered long-term benefits for the printing industry. Contacts and established connections ensured that when the association launched its PrintNZ rebranding Prime Minister Helen Clarke was in attendance and visited industry doyen, Fred Soar.

"We certainly punch above our weight with the government. They know who we are," she comments.

Free your mind and the rest will follow
It would be easy to be misled by Joan's formidable organisational skills and ease in dealing with the complexities of government departments into believing she is a closet bureaucrat in favour of more direct government influence. In fact, beneath her organisational exterior beats the heart of an enthusiastic, if pragmatic free trader.

"I don't believe the government has or should have a lot of influence on the printing market, other than as a fairly major customer. Business owners know what they're doing. Our role is to enable them but not to interfere and tell them what to do."

There is not much direct government lobbying from PrintNZ, certainly none in terms of trying to influence the market. Grace believes the New Zealand printing industry is a lot more reality based than its Australian counterpart. It is wide open to the market influences, both local and international, and has been for a long time. Because of the size of the market, there is no room for anything other than lean manufacturing and rapid adjustments to realities. There is also the sense that New Zealand is a long way away and there is a culture of being self-reliant.

"We're very innovative," says Grace.

Of course, some areas of printing are more vulnerable than others. The packaging sector especially is under threat as more manufacturing moves offshore. This strikes hard at the prized, world-leading New Zealand flexo industry, particularly in the South Island. In this, Grace is a realist.

"The market here is small and the Government has its own trade priorities. Manufacturing is not high on their radar and if you're on the wrong list ..."

She trails off in contemplation of the little that the association can do to actually change the underlying realities. But she is far from pessimistic about the future of printing, pointing out there is some niche printing and packaging work coming back onshore.

"It's the same as the book industry, which went a long time ago. Now there are companies bringing that back because the print runs are getting shorter and they're able to invest in the right equipment," she says.

Printing and the future problems
Joan Grace is an optimist, certainly about the future of printing. She quotes longer-term research that identifies the progress of printing out to 2015.
"Processes such as litho and flexo will still have 60-70 percent of the market then. Digital is growing year on year but it's coming from a very small base.
"Print does things other media can't do. It lets you move away from the clutter. It's a good medium for complex information."

A self-acknowledged intellectual, she makes no apology for seeing most parts of life through that frame. When asked to nominate the three major issues impacting on the industry, she has no hesitation:

* The environment and the impact of such campaigns as New Zealand's contribution to methane gas in a recent Vanity Fair magazine, food miles from UK stores and the questions raised by tourists as to whether they should come all the way to NZ. "These are real issues that are having an impact now."
* Government policy and the additional burdens being placed on businesses to make decisions on behalf of employees need to be continually reassessed. She cites Kiwi Saver (the national retirement savings scheme) as an example.
* Skills training, not only for apprentices but also numeracy and literacy and tertiary level education, is of vital importance. "As an industry we still need accountants, IT and data people. It's all linked together."

Joan Grace may be a standout personality in any room she enters. She is often seen as larger than life and she describes her approach as "open and consultative." But whatever her style, it seems to be exactly what the association and the printing industry of New Zealand needs and applauds.