CanPrint general manager Sam Holden is headed out the door as parent company Opus Group’s restructure continues, as it works to find $27.5m by June 31 to pay off its bank.
Holden, who has been general manager since August 2010, will be made redundant as of tomorrow in what he says is an amicable and planned transition that he has been discussing with Opus chief executive Cliff Brigstocke since December.
As part of ongoing restructuring, Holden’s position will be eliminated entirely. CanPrint sales staff will now report directly to the Opus Group sales manager David Gifford and its production to the operations manager Gary Pool.
Holden says the company is simply cutting out the middle man. “Someone expensive like me doesn’t really fit into that structure,” he says.
[Related: Ups and downs of Opus]
Brigstocke says CanPrint is the last of Opus’ subsidiary companies to adopt the more streamlined corporate structure with the other general managers having already been made redundant over the past few years.
“This change enables us to more efficiently leverage our five Australian, New Zealand and Singapore facilities,” he says.
“A flattened structure utilises function to drive plant efficiencies, one example of this being producing work at the most effective facility for the product type.”
Site operations manager Angus Murphy will assume senior responsibility over CanPrint, a role Sam Holden says he has been preparing him for.
“I’ve been developing local staff and grooming them for higher office, so I’m confident they will do a great job in my absence,” he says.
Holden says he is happy he is leaving the company with a more corporate culture and a high level of customer satisfaction.
“We are winning more than half our tenders and converting half our quotes, which is about 40 per cent better than when I arrived,” he says.
“We have lost only one contract the whole time and gained many others.”
Holden says CanPrint, which largely prints government documents, has increased its market share in Canberra despite there being about half the work available for printers in recent years.
“I really feel like we’re punching above our weight, and I’m sure that will continue,” he says.
Holden says he has been too busy with the transition to look for new work and has no idea where he will go next. Before CanPrint he was national franchise manager for Fuji Xerox Australia and ACT manager for Oce.
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