Editorial: Expanding horizons

You sharpen your pencil, bite the bullet, and send out a quote for a job you hope the bank manager will never see, because you need some work – and still lose out.

Your staff are being paid the same as everyone else's workforce, your paper supplier assures you no-one is getting a better deal than you, your press supplier told a similar story when they sold you those 20 tonnes of iron, and you are not adding a decent director's margin onto the job – so how come you are being told you were nowhere near the winning price?

Pricing of print may be a dark art at the best of times, and these are certainly not the best of times, but there is a mystery at the heart of some winning prices. Theories abound about printers underpaying staff, or stringing along multiple suppliers with little intention of paying them, or going for a loss leader with a new client, but whatever the reality there is no doubt losing a job you have priced to win is disheartening, and many printers, in what has been a quiet month, are struggling to understand what more they can do, and there are no easy answers to that.

Part of the solution may lie in looking further afield into new areas of harvest, which of course is far more easily said than done, especially with those 20 tonnes of iron greeting you every morning. However, there are companies that are doing that, because they are facing those same difficult tradewinds that are blowing across many bows, certainly in commercial print.

The country's biggest sheetfed printer for instance, Blue Star, has just bought its third wide format POS business since it entered the market with its acquisition of STI Lilyfield last year, and now has what it describes as a 'formidable' presence in that market. While there are not many printers able to access the financial muscle of Blue Star, there are creative solutions available for businesses looking at new market sectors – posters, apparel, short run packaging are all growth markets – with mergers, partnerships, and trade houses all routes to enable a business to get into a market without having to invest in a business or in a heap of technology, staff and floorspace.

Losing no margin jobs on price means no future – some would say winning them is no future either – but offering new services may give you a chance of actually winning.

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