Talking Point

Earlier this year British Business Investments announced an additional £15m commitment to Compass Business Finance, taking its total commitment to £30m - the intention being to increase the flow of funding for asset finance products into UK-based smaller businesses operating in the print, packaging and manufacturing sectors. So who is asking for the money, are they getting it, and is this conversation more, or less, likely to make you apply too?

This summer, on 15 June, POPAI UK/Ireland will run its biggest ever sustainability summit - ‘Impact22’.  Topics on the agenda include the greening-up of retail POP and sustainable materials. I talked to chair and sustainability director, Martin Kingdon, to find out where the organisation thinks large-format PSPs
fit into the scheme of things. 

As many large-format digital print businesses continue their transformation to meet the demands of a post pandemic world, I talked with well-known business coach and mentor Chris Jordan about attracting and retaining the right staff for a new era.

Earlier this year MacroArt appointed a non-executive chairman to help it realign and grow its business. The Covid pandemic having caused so many PSPs to reassess their operations, I talked with MD Michael Green about the value of bringing in non-executive directors. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has played havoc with the exhibition calendar as we know only too well, but we’re due to see the return of Fespa Global Print Expo this October. I asked Fespa CEO Neil Felton about the show, about the changes that have taken place during his decade at the helm, and about how he sees Fespa developing.

Earlier this year Web-to-print specialist Vpress partnered website developer Making Websites Better (MWB) to bring out e-commerce solution CloudToPrint, promising printers a ROI within days. Sounds miraculous - so I asked Vpress sales director Kelvin Bell to elaborate on this, and on the urgency for printers to adopt ecommerce in general. 

Peter, your role means you deal with a wide spread of people/organisations, not all of which are within the wide-format print sector, but many of which will impact it somehow.

The BPIF is looking into the formation of a special interest group for the large-format digital print community. The thinking is that there are gaps in sector information and services that the federation could help fill. Investigating the situation is Marcus Clifford, regional director for the East and South East. I asked him to expand upon the idea, and how wide-format PSPs could help - and benefit.