Editor's Blog

Apparently, August is National Water Quality Month. Not meaning to sound flippant, but at the moment it feels like it’s quantity that we really need to be concerned about. I have to admit that I have no idea how much water PSPs in the wide-format inkjet sector use, or whether the various water restrictions across the country have impacted many of you. Now seems like the time to ask. And to check if you’ve put in place any measures to reduce the amount of water you use?

Be in the know! We have now published our Widthwise Report 2022, the 15th annual independent analysis of the UK/Ireland large-format print sector, which this time around is based on data from 201 PSPs that took part in our poll earlier in the year. Go to www.imagereportsmag.co.uk/widthwise for analysis and insight. We’ll follow up with a Round Table discussion in the autumn - so if you run a print company and would like to be involved give me a shout!

News that RA Smart chief Magnus Mighall has joined the Fespa UK Association board got me thinking about the value of making such a commitment. Fortunately, we have some very proactive people in the print space that are willing to give their time and insight to benefit the wider industry. If you are one of them, I’d like to hear from you about what motivates you - and what benefits you reap in return.

I don’t often put direct links to website in my newsletters as you know - there’s a danger that it becomes an expectation and that the whole thing just becomes an unreadable list of links - but I thought I’d break my own rule and attach one that will take you to The World Economic Forum. It has teamed up with the University of Cambridge and the Business School of the National University of Singapore to develop the Future Readiness of SMEs and Mid-Size companies benchmark - a 20 minute self-assessment tool designed to help you identify your company’s strengths and potential gaps and to benchmark your organisation with regard to your peers. Perhaps worth a look?

What do you think of the de-inking solution highlighted in the recently broadcast BBC documentary ‘The Art of Cutting Carbon’. I can’t see Two Sides being too chuffed with the comment by its lead developer Barak Yekutiely of Reep Technologies that: “If we care about the planet, we must stop cutting down so many trees”. And the fact that the ‘de-printer’ uses a powerful laser to vaporise the ink doesn’t sound all that eco-friendly to me. I need to do some more investigating. Perhaps the print industry in general needs to be doing so too - deinking as a concept has been around a long time but we don’t seem to have come very far in terms of developing a truly eco-friendly solution - have we?

It being the end of the month no doubt many of you will have salaries going out, so it seems timely to ask what kind of pay rises you’ve been awarding this year? Research from business performance consultancy Avming UK shows that around 8% of UK businesses are providing inflation-matching pay rises – which actually seems rather a high proportion given all I’m hearing on the grapevine. Any idea what the sector’s average pay increase is at the moment?

With KGK Genix having recently won the ‘Most Innovative Multidisciplinary Creative Agency 2022’ award I’m wondering if the term ‘print service provider’ is something of a misnomer given so many ‘print’ companies have diversified their offering. What are your thoughts?

This week’s heatwave is no doubt going to be repeated – so what are you doing to lower the temperature in your production environments? Would love to hear…

Just a very quick word from my darkened room before the heat gets to me - stay cool! Here’s hoping the heatwave doesn’t adversely impact your productivity over the next couple of days - we’ll be back in jumpers soon enough.

It’s great to hear of so many actions being taken within this sector to help save the planet - and, hopefully, bolster business. If you are doing anything out of the ordinary to mitigate print’s impact of the environment, I’d love to know about it. Thank you

With a multitude of awards schemes open for entry I would like to get some idea of which you enter? Are they all print sector run or are you engaging with the wider community and getting involved in more general business, training, sustainability etc. awards programmes? Just curious…

Have you put your prices up yet? Can you manage to remain profitable without doing so? How tricky is it to manage business in today’s economy? Does it require you to reconfigure your operations and rethink your strategic goals? I can only ask the questions – I’d love to hear some of your answers….

I couldn’t resist that header on the 4 July! But cheesy pun that it is there is a serious question behind it - which is, how do you think the sector’s small family-owned businesses are going to fare over the next few months given the economic situation? The data from this year’s Widthwise survey indicates an optimism among PSPs - you’ll be able to read the full report very soon! – but how many of them think they’re going to have to let go of their independence and become part of bigger entities?

You will notice that the latest ‘Suppliers’ Say So’ blog isn’t from anyone with anything to do with the print industry - it’s from a chap heading global sales, service and marketing at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. But I thought it worth directing your attention to what he has to say about digital transformation as in his own words, “by sharing these experiences, we believe we can help other organisations that are just embarking or that are facing challenges on their own transformational journeys”. May be worth a look-see.