Published a few days ago in Print BusinessAny comments? I would...

Published a few days ago in Print Business

Any comments?

I would simply say, without a hint of irony, how encouraging it must be to printers generally to know that the industry is being saved.

Let's all hope that footballer's wife is spending $300m a year on changing her car colour, to compensate for the annual decline in paper revenues at PPX. Thank goodness she has a Range Rover, if it was a Mini she would only be spending half as much.

No doubt all investors are looking forward to seeing the tangible results of the salvation of the print industry in the numbers due to be announced shortly.

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Price positive as European group switches to Paperlinx name

Andrew Price was buzzing in London last week, styling himself as the saviour of print, not just the paper merchant.

Andy Buxton will head drive to customer centric model.

ANDREW PRICE, THE AUSTRALIAN INVESTOR who as executive director is spearheading the drive to reshape Paperlinx, has, with tongue only half in his cheek, called himself “the saviour of the printing industry”.

He paid a whistlestop visit to Fespa last week before heading with his two non executive directors to Barcelona and other Paperlinx operations, and hosted a reception for key Paperlinx customers and staff in London. He revealed he had 20 initiatives in mind for driving business to printers which would in turn lead to more business for the paper merchant. The first announced has been a paper supply business to allow printers to offer their customers a range of packaging materials through a branded website which would be supplied by Paperlinx. Print and merchant would share the profits from any business.

AT FESPA THE COMPANY LAUNCHED THE second of the initiatives, the Car Wrap Club. On a consumer facing website, the company promotes the idea of adding the decorative finish to cars (the wife of one Chelsea footballer is known to change the colour of her Range Rover every week), the second half of the initiative is training screen and digital printers to cope with this demand.

This comes via a classroom in a 40ft trailer which offers two day courses for those wishing to learn how to add shrink wrapped films to vehicles. After a two day course trainees receive a government recognised qualification to show competence in the fast growing sector. The materials used during training are from Paperlinx and the hope is that the newly qualified trainees will continue to select the materials they are used to - from Paperlinx.

"IT'S PROMOTING THE IDEA OF WRAPPING cars for screen print customers and generating business for them,” said Price. “It’s not about us, it’s creating business for our customers. That’s our direction. It’s not about fighting over the size of the pie, it’s about the making the pie bigger.”

Just what his other initiatives to increase the pie and when they might be rolled out, Price was not saying. The next step is the replacement of 27 different brands around Europe with the one Paperlinx brand. It also continues to be about refining the size of the operation and what the company sways are a measures to “simplify and improve efficiency and customer sales and service operations”.

FOLLOWING THE CHANGE TO THE FPaperlinx brand across Europe from today, the UK business is proposing to close branches in Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham and to bring the business into a single Midlands branch at the head office at Moulton Park in Northampton. Combined with impact on the Delivery Co, the result could lead to 80 lost jobs. Consultation with staff has begun, including transfer within the business.

At the same time Andy Buxton, managing director commercial print takes on additional responsibility for narrow format reels, graphic and cartonboard; graphic consumables; WebCo; Precision Publishing, Resellers and Brightstream. The existing senior management team of David Darwood (Precision), Steve Webb (narrow reels, cartonboards and graphic consumables), Robin Watkinson (WebCo) and Mandy Gallego, sales across these divisions and operations.

Buxton adds: “This new structure forms a key part of our mission to ensure a customer-centric business model.”