Rough road ahead for NSW printers

The harsh reality of business conditions facing New South Wales printers was brought home last night at the Printing Industry Forum.

First speaker, Stephen Michell of HLB Mann Judd pulled no punches in declaring that “your industry is in decline.” This statement set the tone for much of the evening as he listed the failure of well-known printers such as Scott Printing, Quality Print Group and Litho Print and also confirmed the fears regarding the advent of online communication and media.

“The demand for printed material in the information and media sectors will come under pressure from online substitutes,” Michell said.

Looking ahead, he predicted that small-to-medium-sized businesses will form the “second wave” of business failures. “New South Wales is going through a major clean out as I see it,” he said. “A lot of manufacturing is being cleaned out and those small businesses that have been struggling on for years are falling over.”

Pictured: Telling it how it is (l-r) Paul Richardson, Stephen Michell, Tony Kabrovski, Mark Wilton, Peter Carrigan and Steve Crowe.

If it all sounds too grim then Mark Wilton, industry consultant and manager of DES’ Pantone range consoled the audience during a panel with the news that compared to North America and Japan “we were lucky here.”

Audience members often proved reluctant to divulge their own experiences. When moderator, Steve Crowe asked who had raised their prices recently, Kerim El Gabaili of Prografica was the only one who dared raise his hand.

Fellow speaker, Paul Richardson of Lindsay Yates Group, a company which has undergone a massive transformation from a traditional printer to offering an array of services does not believe that prices will go up. Like Michell, he also gave a sobering prediction for the industry.

“This year, I was optimistic about a strong year, but now I think it will be fairly lean all year through,” he said. “Business needs to re-jig to cope.”