Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 31 July 08

Readers are still talking about Drago Zorec's shock exit from the printing world.

Re: Australia's most internationally awarded printer, Drago Zorec, closes up shop

At the risk of re-inflaming passions, are there any lessons we may learn from the so-called "train wreck" that was D&D Global?

The vehemence of some of the recent spleen-venting suggests there was an element of … there, but for the grace of God, go I. But such shallow name-calling does not reflect well on our maturity as an industry and our capacity to see the ying and yang of life. Nobody is suggesting D&D was perfect in every way, but it was a fervent well-spring of innovation – something that should be admired in our industry, not mocked.

We are an industry full of contradictions: we're infatuated with awards, but when someone wins a few they get criticised for "chasing glory ... just for the sake of some feather preening", according to one correspondent, last week.

Another expert from that well-known citadel of marketing know-how, Bandicoot Printing, condemmed Drago for "constantly spruiking the benefits of quality over price" Hello? Am I missing something? Have we got it all wrong when we strive to offer value-adding benefits, instead of trying to flog printing at the lowest possible price?

Sure enough, the view of your esteemed expert – that we should sell only on price and forget quality – was immediately contradicted by another correspondent, who accused the new Sydney start-up, Image Solutions, of under-quoting – and suggested in no uncertain terms they should increase their prices.

So there you have it – on the one hand it's better just to sell on price and forget about quality, but when you do sell on price you get into trouble from your peers.

My point is, there will always be a variety of views on any subject – even the relative contribution that D&D may have made. But before we stomp all over the coffin in glee that yet another printing company, aka as The Competitor has gone, let us ask: what were the lessons leaned?

First, I should declare a vested interest. I was the one who got young Jeremy Owens his job at D&D some eight years ago. (Jeremy wrote on this topic two weeks ago, and got his head bitten off.) Jeremy recalls working for D&D as an enriching and beneficial experience, largely due to the personal mentoring by Drago, which included the offer of tertiary education – and other training – to a young man who showed some promise.

So what are the lessons we can learn from D&D's demise?

• it is bad to take a personal interest in the welfare and careers of your staffthere is no point in pioneering exciting innovations such as stochastic-screening or multi-colour printing"
• it's a silly idea to promote value-adding options and benefits over price
• it is wrong to be passionate about print and to regard it as a creative process in its own right
• there is no point trying to integrate print into other media so as to provide a "total solution" to your clients, and ...
• it's a worthless exercise to promote the Australian printing industry on the international stage, as equal to, or better than, its overseas peers

If that's all D&D did, they deserve to swept into the dustbin of history and forgotten - so we may resume our normal way of doing business.

But before we do that – quirky, idiosyncratic and occasionally exasperating as Drago was – is his model of innovation and striving for excellence any worse than going down the soulless path of commoditisation that may be the alternative? 

W James Cryer,
JDA PRINT RECRUITMENT

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Re: University of Sydney print centre threatened with closure

 

The NIPPA Committee of Manangement (CoM) read your article about the threat of closure at Sydney University and your treatment of NIPPA's comments – we believe it is a distortion of what was actually submitted.

There was nothing 'muted' about our response - or wouldn't have been if you had published the entire comment. You 'muted' the comment by only publishing half of it and thereby denying the reader a full understanding of NIPPA's position. Not once did our statement contain the word 'Outsourcing" and yet you attributed that connotation to our statement through the use of brackets. The business model is a Print Management (Brokerage service) model which is what we actually said.

As for "conditions of anonymity" – yet again a distortion. We asked that the comment be attributed to "a spokesman for the Network of In-house Print Professionals Australasia (NIPPA)" – ironically the same treatment you afforded the CPSU. Comments come from and on behalf of the Association through the CoM - something you still don't understand. The last two times you have run articles on NIPPA you have misrepresented what and who made the comments.

NIPPA is and has always been prepared to make comment – a fact you very well know. We make these in good faith, trusting that Print 21 will present them in a professional and accurate manner. Media outlets like yours rely on industry comments from time to time. It appears Print 21 leans towards negative stories about our industry sector. When Chisholm Institute in Victoria brought their service back in house we noticed you didn't canvass any industry comments then.

Your editing of the statement was a gross misrepresentation of our view, our words and our commitment to our member organisation. We feel an apology and acknowledgement, in the same forum as the misrepresentation took place, is in order.

David Harrison
President - NIPPA
Murdoch University

From the editor:

One of the tasks of an editor is to preserve readers from having to wade through verbiage. The NIPAA statement was cut, but the missing portion is included here below so that readers may judge for themselves if they missed out on any relevant comment:

There is nothing particularly innovative, imaginative in this business model and it is not without considerable financial, social and environmental risks. It's a model that looks great in a 'desk top' review but doesn't necessarily provide the savings and efficiencies first assumed. The actual resources required to manage numerous contracts, contractors and Service Levels Agreements should be critically evaluated and costed. To think the only cost is the salary of the person(s) managing the brokerage service is naive.