We’re hearing a lot of survival stories lately; if not survival – continuance of existence while adapting to big changes. The tide of business failures in the printing and allied industries appears to be ebbing.
We’re hearing a lot of survival stories lately; if not survival – continuance of existence while adapting to big changes. The tide of business failures in the printing and allied industries appears to be ebbing.
It’s at every level; manufacturers, suppliers, printers large, printers SME and even start-ups. One such start-up is YPB Group, an Australian ASX-listed company that has developed low-cost counterfeit detection and tracking technology with applications in brand packaging, government and security printing. Until the end of 2016, YPB is in what it calls its ‘business-building’ phase but has already won contracts in PR China where, believe it or not, anti-counterfeiting is seen as a solid investment for that country's viability as a reliable offshore manufacturer. In early July, YPB announced the acquisition of a California-based company though which YPB hopes to crack the US anti-counterfeiting market.
YPB’s patented technology introduces rare earth elements into printing ink and plastic colourants, giving them a unique ‘DNA’ that can be scanned and verified at any stage right up to point-of-purchase. This method costs a fraction of, say, RFID labeling and is foolproof since the traceable component is discrete and part of the end product – a brand forger removing it will probably destroy the product. YPM also proposed to accelerate its market by becoming a print management broker for high-security packaging using its own tracing technology.
Overdue good news
Our region’s largest printer, PMP, is expected to report its full-year result in mid-August but an interim 11-month bulletin issued in June portends a very solid result with earnings up, debt halved and an anticipated 50% of profits returned to shareholders.
Another NSW print group – Bright Print – has made a raft of very savvy acquisitions over the past few years, the latest being Print National which was preceded by NCP of Newcastle. While the carpetbaggers of private equity were sucking Geon and BSPG dry, John Bright and his team have amassed a noble stable of print brands, cleverly managed and with, excuse the pun, a bright future.
Utilisation of digital presses such as HP Indigo sheet and narrow web models continues to head north, meaning that more work is being performed on digital machines. Venerable Sydney offset printer Lindsay Yates installed its first full colour digital B2 press – an HP Indigo 10000 – and is sure to fill its capacity with high profit short-run work in no time. Even offset demand is being talked-up by its devotees, such as Sydney’s Innovative Print Solutions who also has several digital devices. IPS director Diane Kelso, upon delivery of a new Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75-6 commented: “...there is a huge amount of offset demand out there…” Tell that to the Marines?
The supply sector is a mixed bag following Kodak’s and manroland’s bankruptcies, but some are bristling with success. Fujifilm’s Chairman and CEO Shigetaka Komori has even written a book on how he bucked the trend for photo-chemical companies to go out of the door backwards: Innovating Out of Crisis. While Agfa and Konica quit photographics altogether and Kodak muddled through until it went Chapter 11 in 2012; Fujifilm was busy re-inventing itself in what must count as one of the most remarkable corporate turn-arounds in history. Faced with the sudden collapse of film photography around 2000, Fujifilm watched as red ink took no less than 66% of its profits away. What happened next after Komori became President in 2000 is a salutary lesson in smart thinking, leadership, determination and sheer blood and guts. Fujifilm has just delivered its best year ever and broken the US$20 billion in revenue barrier. New markets have been entered into such as cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and the company is now the world’s largest inkjet ink producer and industrial inkjet printhead maker, through acquisitions of Sericol and Dimatix.
Konica Minolta is another survive-and-prosper tale of a once photo-dependent company re-inventing itself as a digital printer supplier. As Patrick Howard reported from Israel 2 weeks ago, HP Indigo is having difficulty coping with its influx of orders and is now manufacturing over 1,000 digital presses a year. Its progenitor Benny Landa will go commercial with Nanography in ten month’s time at drupa 2016 and who knows what surprises the master showman will present to an eager print audience?
There are many other examples but a final one from the world of out-of-home media. ASX-listed oOH! Media now derives 25% of its profits from digital billboards and now has a network of over 1,700 of them. CEO Brendan Cook acknowledges that there is a ‘right mix’ of both digital and static away-from-home media, with some types such as POP displays being firmly a print-board realm.
The common thread
In all the above examples and many more, there is a common thread and that is smart thinking. It takes courage to challenge established paradigms and confront outmoded practices. Smart, critical thinking does not mean you have an IQ like Einstein. It just means that it’s smart to find pathways to success and, conversely, dumb to merely stand by and watch your business world crumble around you, bemoaning ill-fortune.
But smart, critical thinking is only part of the story. First you have to see the problems, then do the thinking which turns into a plan and is followed by action – the ‘doing.’ See-Think-Plan-Do or, as Fujifilm’s Komori abbreviates it: STPD.
This applies from the smallest to the biggest print and related business and anyone can accomplish it. It starts with recognising the reality: ‘what?’ is happening and ‘why?’ is it happening? Honest answers to those questions will put you well on the path to survival of the smartest.