Monthly Archives: March 2011

Corporate Buying At Work

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I had an insightful conversation with a member recently.  He and his spouse had been in business for 30 years and primarily served the small business community as well as select large accounts.  With nothing larger than 11×17 presses, they had carved out a nice business, as have many printers over the years.

The company has gone through dramatic re-shaping over the past five years.  Where at one time they employed over 15 employees, they’re down to the husband/wife and two part-timers.  No, they did not have their heads in the sand.  Over the years they adopted desktop prepress and adopted short-run color copiers and still utilize their offset presses.  This is not an isolated story but one that is being seen more and more frequently across the graphic arts landscape.

Yes, the printing “pie” has gotten smaller, but there’s something else at work which is truly affecting our “ma & pa” printers.  It is corporate buying patterns.  As corporate America has downsized and become leaner, they have started to outsource to integrated buying firms.  In our industry those firms come in different names, but are familiar — FedEx Office; Staples; OneSource; WorkFlow One, and Standard Register to name a few.  Their model is simple.  Purchase through their centralized systems and you will see significant savings.

This has played havoc with the commercial/quick printer who was already seeing his slice become smaller because of Internet based technology.  In this new world, the decision of using a local supplier in not an option.  No longer were competitive pricing, service, and ability to meet deadlines important.  The driving issue was corporate profitability.  Squeeze the “fat” out of the system had become the mantra.  In search of this year’s improved earnings per share, things changed.  Yet, one has to ask at what cost to manufacturing? Employment?  The Consumer?  From the macro economic perspective, were we that much better off?  And can anything be done?  Probably not in the short term — but somewhere down the road, some corporate mogul will realize that there are hidden upsides in using vendors who are committed to doing the right thing for a company, not the cheapest.

Vision3 Summit

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It was probably one of the industry’s best attended top management conferences in years – if not decades. Over 400 attended last week’s Vision3 Summit which was the first time Printing Industries of America, National Association of Print Leadership (NAPL), and The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies (NPES) all joined together. Although the venue (Palm Springs) always has one asking “who is really going to attend,” the programs were all very well attended and chock-full of information which is not readily found in many association programs or industry magazines. Continue reading →

Wisconsin Nukes Collective Bargaining

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It’s not what I really expected to happen, but Wisconsin’s legislators “went medieval” (to use a wonderful phrase from “Pulp Fiction”) on the unions this week.  The repercussions should be very interesting and started with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka saying that the action was a “corruption of democracy.”  A bit far-fetched, and as Jim Kyger, PIA’s Human Relations guru noted – why wasn’t Trumka saying that about last year’s landmark health care legislation?

What’s being hidden in all of this rhetoric is the fact that collective bargaining has created situations which are now becoming financially un-supportable.  With over 50% of unionized employees working for the government, this also creates some crucial issues for taxpayers – who tend to be supportive of collective bargaining for government employees (although I mistrust how the survey questions are designed).  The electorate doesn’t really have a clue what it’s going to cost them.  There continues to be the idea that the “government can afford it.”

Collective bargaining may have had its place in past years, but over the decades both sides (management/employees) have acted like high school football players at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and are now paying for their over indulgence.   Or should I say we’re going to pay for it.