Awards for the Business of Printing –
James Cryer letter Never one to pass up an opportunity to push his message, James Cryer, gives his seal of approval to the inaugural Business Awards at this month's Printing Industries NSW conference at Leura.
The Coming of Age of the Printing Industry After the intoxicating extravaganza served up by the National Print Awards in May, I came away from last week’s awards program in Leura, with the feeling I had digested a veritable ploughman’s lunch. Full of meaty substance, I felt it went a long way towards drilling down into the very core of what are the essential ingredients for our survival as a viable, competitive and socially responsible industry, able to compete on a number of fronts in today’s confusing and complex world.
In some ways, the printing industry has experienced a dream run for the last 400 years or so, where it’s enjoyed a virtual monopoly status: if you wanted to communicate you had few options but to have it printed. Now that we are moving into a more fluid and chaotic era where the communication lines are blurred and client loyalties are less predictable, we have no option but to recognise the existence of new threats and opportunities – and to re-define ourselves accordingly.
We’ve been forced to join the 'real world', where we are required to satisfy several stakeholders or vested interests – not just those of the owner. In this politically correct world we increasingly have obligations to our employees, the environment, and society at large (the James Hardie saga is a case in point). I feel that these business-related awards reflect this transition, as we mature as an industry and accept our broader obligations in the market place.
This whole concept of “corporate responsibility” is here to stay, whether we like it or not, and organizations can now be measured against an index that has been developed, specifically to benchmark companies’ performance in the areas of :
- the community,
- the environment,
- the workplace, and
- the marketplace. And other concepts such as “triple bottom-line” reporting are creeping in at the upper levels. We expect our banks, mining companies and other large corporate citizens to behave more responsibly – why not us as printing companies?
Certainly one may critique aspects of the evening’s program, for example some may favour a couple of winners in each category, but overall I believe it was a worthy attempt to acknowledge that there are many other dimensions than mere quality that will become the drivers of the long-term success and viability which our industry seeks, as it re-adjusts itself to the new reality.
W. James Cryer JDA
Print Recruitment |
