An excerpt from AP March 2020 Print Leaders Forum – by Carbon8 co-director Kenneth Beck-Pedersen
The year 2020 will be challenging, and that’s saying something for the printing industry which hasn’t exactly been dealt the best hand over the recent past. So, how do we navigate a year where Australia seems almost certain to fall into recession, the demand for the product we have built our teams and machinery around continues to wane and a broader world that appears determined to go down an isolationist, protectionist and defensive rabbit hole?
I certainly don’t have a crystal ball or some greater insight than anyone else but I’m willing at least to accept things as they are in so much as that this is the hand that we’ve been dealt and so there’s no point in hoping for a re-deal.
At Carbon8, we have for many years now, followed a philosophy of innovation and complexity rather than repetition and commodity but as our business has grown and the industry continues to shrink around us, we’ve had to embrace the middle ground a lot more.
Our investment in Sydney’s first HP Indigo 12000 opened up new areas of business serving other printers who have need for our unique range of capabilities. We’ve not traditionally been seen as a trade printer but it stands to reason that as the market for our services shrinks around us, we all benefit from having the right solution for any request a customer may have rather than holding onto it jealously; otherwise we risk that demand evaporating while we are too busy fighting each other.
So, I see co-operation as vital for printers now. This includes not just capabilities but pricing. It might sound like I’m advocating collusion between printers, but I’m not. I’m suggesting that the market around us is shrinking and we can accelerate the downward pressure or we can support each other, support our customers with the right solutions and pick our battles where we go head to head.
Maybe it sounds hypocritical of a printer who has just bought a new printing press to now be advocating for our competitors to not do exactly as we have. I just mean that as an industry we should temper the worst of our bullish tendencies as I simply do not see a miracle around the corner for any of us.
It certainly feels like the worst of the industry’s decline is centered on the more traditional sheetfed area. For a long time, it has been accepted that offset volumes were falling, now even digital appears to be sliding.
The safe harbour, wide format, for many years seen as the saviour and future of printers is definitely under pressure too. Screens and electronic displays are everywhere and they cannot help but erode that market this year too.
We see an opportunity here for us all though, if we can promote 100 per cent recyclable solutions made of paper-based products and with no need for power or replacement of the electronic device in time.
The printing industry missed an opportunity when we didn’t properly push back on the shift towards screens and electronic devices. They aren’t free and without consequence for the environment so we have a good story to tell our customers if we care to tell it.
The printing industry is largely environmentally friendly, largely recyclable and sustainable. It’s not without its challenges nor issues (such as the tendency to use PVC-based products in wide format) but compared with electronic communication (and its e-waste and related carbon footprint) it has a positive story.
There are a host of new entirely paper-based products that can largely replace the likes of Foamcor and rigid PVC and they don’t need charging and they won’t contribute to landfill at end of life. Maybe we need to get our industry body behind us as this is a battle larger than any of us alone.
People are willing to help, they just need to feel motivated and see it as socially beneficial. Maybe one day, rather than emails having the ‘helpful’ suggestion ‘think before you print this email’, advertising could carry the social advisory, ‘this message is printed on 100 per cent recyclable, sustainable paper that biodegrades and never needs charging’.
This article was written prior to the impact of COVID-19. The digital version of AP March 2020 is available here.
And as part of AP’s 70 anniversary, we’re pulling together a list of 70 local industry pioneers – you can make your nominations here.
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