The other side of the fence – Print21 magazine article

It’s a long way from Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, to North Ryde, NSW, but it’s even further from running your own printing company to heading up an equipment sales team. Mark Harvey has come a long way in the printing game, but the path has not always been straight or the destination clear. He talks with Patrick Howard about jumping the fence.

Mark Harvey reckons he knows how printers think. He knows what’s on their minds and how they feel about equipment salespeople. Not surprising really as the affable Kiwi has spent most of his working life as a printer. Now he’s on the other side, tasked with selling Canon’s production range of presses to printers.

Of course not only to printers, but Canon has identified the commercial print market as the primary demand group for its imagePRESS range, both colour and mono. It is a fairly radical shift for digital printing but it seems to be paying off. Certainly Canon’s early success with the imagePRESS in New Zealand was attributable to engaging commercial printers, not the copy shops and prepress houses as of yore.

Harvey’s experience in the sector was a decisive factor when it came to his appointment in the middle of 2009. The role required someone who could bring credibility to the conversation, who knew the challenges and pitfalls of buying capital equipment, digital equipment at that, in some of the toughest economic conditions experienced for years.

“After we talk for a while they know I understand where they’re coming from. You can see them relax and open up,” says Harvey of commercial printers when we talked at a coffee bar over the road from the Canon HQ in Sydney.

Long and winding road
For much of Harvey’s progression through the printing industry his career followed a traditional path. He qualified as a printer at Rush Print in Hawke’s Bay under owner Robert Penman. It was a typical small print operation with a couple of two-colour Ryobi and four staff. After a trip overseas, the young Harvey came back and bought into the business, eventually taking full control.

Over a period of six or seven years from the late 1990s, he bought new equipment, Hamadas and a five-colour Shinohara as well as CTP from AM International. It was a brave move for a young printer but he had good finance and a talent for forecasting future growth. The road took a turning with the arrival of the private equity boom. By the time Pacific Print Group (later Geon) came knocking on his door with an offer too good to refuse, Harvey had built up the business to a $2 million turnover with 18 staff. Rush Print was merged with Brebner Print and Harvey soon found himself working for Geon under Neville Smith, running 76 staff in a 24-hour a day operation.

Then he was tapped to come over to Australia to run Geon’s Seven Hills plant in Sydney (formerly Don Elliott’s Agency Printing merged with Ron Hoolahan’s Graphic World). When this too was merged with Geon’s Banksmeadow site, Harvey became the company’s NSW operations manager. It was a long way from Hawke’s Bay but it was also a torrid time for the company. When Canon approached him to move over to the supply side, he seized the opportunity.

“I’d had enough of 80-hour weeks,” he reflects.

How printers think
It’s easy to see how such a deep understanding of the printing industry appealed to Canon, especially to Craig Manson, formerly managing director of Canon New Zealand, now GM marketing for the region. The imagePRESS range was going gangbusters on the other side of the Tasman with more than 30 installations but was struggling to make an impact in Australia. To Manson’s way of thinking it was because the benefits were not being targeted at commercial printers. He saw the technology, especially the digital colour C7000VP and the C6000, as ideal for the commercial print market. He wanted someone who could walk the walk.

“It is very different to work on the sales side, challenging and educational,” says Harvey. “I know how printers operate, know what they focus on when they’re busy, how cunning and creative they have to be. My job is to introduce them to a revenue generating asset that will help grow their business.”

There is no doubt that Harvey has experience across most types of commercial printing. As a qualified offset tradesman he is well aware of the benefits of that method, but he is firmly convinced that the tide has turned in favour of digital.

“Most commercial printers who survived 2009 have little cash reserves. Selling them capital equipment means you have to deliver in extra sales and cost savings. More profit and product,” he said. “The hardest part of the discussion is to move it to digital. You have to convince them it can do the work. They’re still thinking in terms of wet ink but today, dry printing is more profitable.

“An average print run is now less than 2,000 sheets worldwide. At the same time, the number of jobs has increased. Customers now order from the database; if they want 1,750 copies, they’ll order it, not 2,000 because it’s almost the same price. Next month, if they want an extra 50 they’ll come back and order it.”

It is obvious Harvey has empathy with the printers confronting uncomfortable change. After all, he’s had to deal with a lot of it himself. He knows not everyone will be won over to the digital argument but he has doubts as to their long-term chances of survival if they don’t acknowledge the new world paradigm.

“There is still digital phobia out there, especially among the large A1 printers, who are the hardest to get across the line. These guys are accustomed to 16-page impositions; it’s a different mindset working with A3 sheets on a digital press.

“But I’m convinced that your average mid-range printer with 20 staff, if they don’t have a digital strategy they will struggle to survive. You don’t earn any profit in outsourcing a $200 digital job and there are more of them. You must be able to service your customer, no matter what they want.”

To click or not to click
One of the biggest cultural changes for commercial printers when considering digital is the move to the click charge. There is no toll per sheet on an offset press, but every time a digital press turns out a print the equipment supplier gets a click charge. This is now under threat from ‘clickless’ models about to be introduced to the market, notably Fujifilm’s new inkjet press (Jet Press 720) and, ironically, on Canon equipment through its distributor, Ferrostaal.

It is not a business model Harvey is enthusiastic about, although he can see the appeal to commercial printers. Certainly Canon has no immediate plans to go down the ‘clickless’ route.

“Ferrostaal’s model of no click charge is an interesting concept, I’m sure it will appeal to some printers out there, it will be an interesting sell as it is an offset model. Click charges are pretty fair and evenly spread across customers. I’d be surprised if anyone was paying more than 10 cents a click. So everyone knows where they stand,” he comments.

It is this type of straight talking that Harvey makes his trademark. He may not be a natural salesman but when talking to printers that is not such a bad thing.