Sales director Russell Cavenagh reported that it was literally standing room only at the Melbourne event held on Tuesday at the Ibis Hotel in Glen Waverley, with the venue’s capacity of 120 seats filled. DES had anticipated roughly 10% of registrations to end up being “no-shows”, but this complement was quickly filled by “walk-ins”.
It was more of the same in Sydney yesterday, with the event at the Stamford Grand North Ryde also receiving a solid turnout.
The free seminars featured presentations from DES colour management specialist David Crowther, CGS sales director Christoph Thommessen, and CGS product marketing manager Bernd Rückert.
Photo gallery: pictures from DES’ ISO compliance seminars in Sydney and Melbourne.
DES managing director Ian Clare opened proceedings, alluding to the recent controversy surrounding ISO compliance as one of the company’s motivations for holding the seminars, saying that with all the debate between UGRA, FOGRA, ISO and PSO, “there have been all manner of acronyms thrown around.”
Thommessen then gave an overview of the merits of ISO compliance, looking at how the phenomenon has changed the printing landscape in worldwide markets. He explained that whilst standardisation had become common in Europe and Asia, only “big printers” were concerned with it in southern Africa thus far.
Thommessen urged Australian printers to be mindful of market forces at this time but not to ignore the fundamentals, particularly offering a “workflow which matches customer requirements” and being “competitive on quality and price”.
Australia’s proximity to Asia means it has more difficulty staying competitive on price, according to Thommessen, who described some of the prices on offer from Chinese printers as “ridiculous”.
“So you have to give them something different,” he said.
“When you standardise you deliver immeasurably better results than your competitor.”
In-between presentations, Cavenagh handed out prizes in a business card draw, with X-Rite EyeOne Display 2 and Pantone colour products being awarded to the lucky attendees.
DES had twice been forced to upgrade the location of the seminars after “unprecedented” demand forced it to seek higher capacity venues.
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