What went wrong – Alan King on OnDemand

Every printing business failure brings its own list of causalities. Suppliers are more often than not part of the equation. Alan King, Rilecart Binding Supplies, escaped with little damage from OnDemand. He shares some thoughts on the the problem.

I think your article on 17th November lets Bruce off just a little too lightly when you refer to him as "giving it away"

I was present at the creditors meeting where he put forward an impressive and I guess damning list of reasons for the failure of OnDemand, including poor advice and diligence on DPA, over capitalization to meet technical advances, thinly capitalized, poor costing system, margin pressures and low margin, difficult jobs, weak financial systems and bad advice and his obvious poor health.  In hindsight a pathway to failure.

From a supplier’s point of view this, and other all too often business failures, point to the dilemma we all face ­– when do you take action to tighten credit, ask for cash, or simply stop supply? It's clearly a balance between what we are told, which is often very optimistic and on occasions sadly, totally misleading, what the industry is telling us and our wish to support owners and employees who we have known for a long time. And of course, not giving up business to our competitors. Decisions which are not easy  – and there are few of us that get it right all the time.

So yet another creditors meeting with a grim faced audience and a 'no funds available to pay creditors' message from the chair. Surely the most common paragraph in any liquidator’s computer.

I must wish Michael Wu well - OnDemand has great potential and the employees, who were/are owed over $1m in entitlements, deserve a break.