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BPIF (British Printing Industries Federation)
Patricia Hewitt gives hope to struggling industry in Directions
(30/06/2003)
Contributing her ‘personal view of the industry’ in the latest edition of Directions, the BPIF’s quarterly survey of trends in the printing industry, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt provides optimism for an industry, which may be witnessing the worst levels of overcapacity and declining margins for 20 years.
Referring to the success of the ‘Vision in Print’ launch event, Patricia Hewitt says: “We now have the framework and strategy in place so that together we can drive through the changes and improvements that I believe we all want to achieve in the print sector.”
With up to 12% of companies surveyed reporting that they are ‘perfectly happy with the state of trade and their prospects’, it shows that there still is money to be made in the industry where company performance is becoming increasingly polarised. Clearly through the activities of ‘Vision in Print’ and its partners such as BPIF Business, it is hoped that these best practice success stories will proliferate and, in due course put the industry back on track.
Whilst many companies are surviving by stringent cost containment through rationalisation or economies of scale achieved through partnership or consolidation, there are also companies which believe that ‘maintaining prices and margins is a discipline. They see no reason to chase volume even at the expense of losing turnover’.
Cicely Brown, Director of Corporate and External Affairs at the BPIF comments, “Directions this quarter does not make happy reading. However, through the support of the DTI and ‘Vision in Print’, we will have the tools to address the situation at first hand. There are companies, many of them BPIF members, who are successful today. Through benchmarking initiatives, Vision in Print’s improvement programmes and transfer of best practice, over time we should be able to see real improvement in competitiveness and profitability across the whole industry.”
The BPIF will also be working with government to promote a regulatory environment which will support, rather than stifle the rejuvenation of the industry:
“There are a number of issues at the moment such as TUPE* requirements on companies in administration, SME access to finance and abusive procurement trends which could be improved to promote competitiveness in the industry. We are working with the DTI and CBI to try and obtain the best result for the sector,” continues Miss Brown.
The quarterly BPIF Directions survey of trends is based upon interviews with 98 companies representing turnover of £1.4bn. Directions is issued free to BPIF members or can be purchased from the BPIF for an annual subscription of £100 or £25 per issue.
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Resources available for this release (Issue
Number: 4746)
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| Release issued on: |
30/06/2003 |
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| Picture(s): |
None available
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| External downloads available for this release: |
None available
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| Contacts at ADC: |
Shireen Shurmer, Director
AD Communications Ltd
The Old Post House
81 High Street
Esher
Surrey
KT10 9QA
UK
Telephone:+44 (0)1372 464 470
Fax: +44 (0)1372 468 626
Web Site: http://www.adcomms.co.uk
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| Contacts at BPIF (British Printing Industries Federation): |
Cicely Brown Director of External and Corporate Affairs
+44 (0)20 7915 8368
Farringdon Point
29/35 Farringdon Road
London
EC1M 3JF
UK
Telephone: +44 (0)870 240 4085
Fax: +44 (0)20 7405 7784 |
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| Logo available for download: |
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| Websites: |
www.bpif.org.uk |
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| See also: |
Not applicable |
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