A range of Forums were held during the week of PacPrint including panel discussions with print leaders including IVE Group CEO Matt Aitken, Blue Star CEO Jill Cowling, Cactus Imaging co-founder Keith Ferrel, TRMC CEO Kellie Northwood, Pakko founder Nina Nguyen and Imagebox director David Asker.

First up was a session from The Real Media Collective’s General Manager of IR, Policy & Governance, Charles Watson. Watson’s talk focused on how small businesses can best protect themselves when it comes to Terms and Conditions of trade, employment related contracts, including casuals, and other horizon issues.

Watson asked the attendees to consider how long has it been since they’ve looked at their Terms and Conditions of trade.

“This is an instrument that you have that is one of the most important that you have in your business, and you need to be looking at it annually or bi-annually,” Watson said.

“They set out your essential trading terms, they form the basis of the contractual relationship you have with your clients and by them being in writing they can minimise an issue if it grows or becomes a dispute later.

“The usual items they would contain would be your prices, your fees, your payment structures, your requirements for credit checks, director guarantees and that sort of thing. Delivery of the goods and services and potentially any dispute resolution clause that you might apply if a dispute arises.”

Other issues covered included award pay rates, superannuation, potential law changes such as amendments to Family and Domestic Violence Leave and the ongoing effects of COVID-19.

Creating diversity in business

In a fireside chat with IVE Group CEO Matt Aitken and Blue Star Group (NZ) CEO Jill Cowling, moderated by The Real Media Collective CEO Kellie Northwood, Aitken and Cowling spoke about the diversity of business.

Aitken said IVE Group has gone through a range of initiatives in its company over the last 25 years, to continue to diversify away from being considered as just a printer.

“Some of our customers want less vendors in their supply chain to manage. They’re looking at how they can consolidate more of what they spend with trusted suppliers and that fundamentally meant our revenue share going down. So, what we decided on early was to diversify our business and sell more to our customers,” he said.

“And those diversification strategies have ebbed and flowed along the way, as we’ve gone through various changes of ownership. This is because one of strategies has always been about what makes sense to the client for us to continue to offer and grow our value proposition.

“Some of the more non-print areas that we’ve progressed out into quite successfully would be premiums and merchandising, as well as the logistics part of our business.

“In 2014, we were not in retail display or in point-of-sale. We were outsourcing our point-of-sale – we were probably making $3 million or $4 million a year doing that but that’s now worth $120 million of our revenue line.”

Aitken also said IVE Group also uses the acquisitions route to add capabilities into its business.

“We’ve made some acquisitions, investing a lot in technology and efficiency. As a company, we thought a lot about how we can bring these opportunities back into our business as a more fundamental and core part of our offering,” he added.

Cowling agreed with Aitken, saying that the Blue Star Group (NZ) took a similar approach to market when it came to diversifying its business.

“We looked at our customers, and we listened to what they said. They wanted us to be more than just a printer,” she said.

“And so, finding what that represents – whether it’s creative services, design, or retail display – is the approach we took and moved into. We further support that by having structural engineers, teams of people and experts that can add value to the customer.

“It’s just about being everything that you can be to your customer to make them as sticky as possible. And that’s what we do.”

Packaging is another segment that the Blue Star Group (NZ) moved into.

“We have also seen good growth in packaging. A lot of printers can easily move into packaging, but it does take some investment. We chose to diversify into packaging and it makes up probably 15 per cent of our core business now,” Cowling said.

“And the interesting thing about having moved into packaging, is that we are actually very good at getting quoting and within 48 hours producing that job.”

Aitken and Cowling also spoke about creating diversity in business through the hire of people from different backgrounds, having a workforce with both male and female representation, training younger people and investing in workplace training.

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