Ten years on Print21 report still drives change

Seminal industry study is even more relevant now but very few printing firms acted on the original insight from management guru, Goran Roos.

The author of the milestone industry report in 2001 drove home the need for a print paradigm shift at the Printing Industries final 2011 NSW CEO forum held in ANZ Stadium.

According to Prof Roos, there are three things managers in Australia’s print industry need to focus on in company development. To get the most out of their assets they must develop their managerial capability, focus on adding value to the firm by using technology and design to develop services and solutions. Business models need to change to appropriate that added value before customers take it first.

“I can say Australia’s print industry shares a lot of the problems with printing industry’s across the world, but for many years it has been a slow mover in adapting the necessary changes.

“What we have here today is a very small proportion of the industry, and it takes a huge amount of effort to disseminate information across the whole industry, which is made up of so many small firms. That is one of the challenges the Printing Industries Association of Australia will take on.

“But we will assume for a minute that we have disseminated the information, and that’s a big assumption, then you will see a slow uptake and some visible financial results probably around five years from now. A measurable impact on non-financials may be seen around three years,” he says.

Roos’ presentation entitled 'The New Print Paradigm: What you should know to get involved or to get out’ provided the 75 plus CEOs and decision makers present with insight into strategies and opportunities they should be using to attain longevity. His recommendation to the group was to think broader, to expand the mental understanding of their respective businesses. Thinking outside the box on what a company can offer is essential to stay in the game.

To succeed a firm must know their customer’s business better than they do, or risk absorbing all the risk. The firms that perform well understand the underpinning technologies, how production techniques work and have real depth of knowledge about their business. Some handholding or guidance is needed to start, but that is the way of the world.

Since the release of his Print21 Action Agenda ten years ago, Roos finds too few companies read the report or the recommendations therein. Only one person present at the CEO forum had read it.

“Since the report I have seen the emergence of numerous successful firms in this market, primarily the digital space, which was enabled by the technology. A second group are firms that have taken on board the information from the Print21 Action Agenda and transformed themselves into something that straddles the bench between more traditional and modern issues, they have done exceedingly well.

“Then you have the greater number of printers, which really haven’t done a lot, and who are suffering. I think most of those would like to retire and are finding it very difficult,” he says.

Roos states that it is better to be approximately right than absolutely wrong, reflecting that in most countries around the printing industry, very few firms listened. “That’s one of things that distinguished the printing industry from other industries. It was the share of the industry that listened, and it was lower in the printing industry than in any other.”

Specific recommendations set forth by Roos to help industry decision makers improve their business include:

• Develop a technology roadmap – a navigation reference to which firms can make informed decisions.
• Develop a set of management competence development programs.
• Develop a new set of self help tools for the firm.

Roos was recently in Adelaide where he rejoiced in the title and role of Thinker in Residence at the University of South Australia.