Industry Self-Analysis From The UK

By The PEiR Group




British printers believe that attracting more business in the coming year will be the key challenge for the reprographics industry.

Results of a British Association for Print & Communication (BAPC) association survey won’t come as much of a news flash for U.S. counterparts, but it does demonstrate that our colleagues overseas are looking for ways to identify and overcome challenges for the looming New Year.

The “attract more business” finding echoed the results of a similar sampling conducted last year, but the perceived remedies jumped dramatically in importance as UK printers are driven to find immediate solutions to a drop in their business.

Improving staff performance, reducing operating costs, and boosting productivity and efficiency all shot up the BAPC list this year as printers struggled to match output and input costs in 2009.

Last year's number two, retaining existing business, dropped to number 10 in the list while last year's number three, fighting falling margins, fell to seventh place on the list of top concerns.

"This survey shows that printers are worried about the economic climate in 2009," Sidney Bobb, BAPC chairman, told PrintWeek. "It is interesting that improving staff performance is so high this year - to do this, printers will need to invest in training."