Features

Meditate in my direction. That was the intriguing invitation Olivia Newton John’s Sandy made to John Travolta’s Danny in the movie Grease back in 1978. Despite the Aussie popstrel’s allure, meditation has never really been sexy – especially in the workplace. Yet Matthew May, founder of the LA ideas agency Edit Innovation, has suggested that one of the keys to innovation is: “A quiet mind, severed for a time from the problem at hand.”

Before you dismiss this as yet another example of faddish, New Age, nonsense, consider that the leaders of such lacklustre businesses as 3M, Bloomberg, Ford, General Electric, Monsanto, Oracle and Shell all meditate. Medtronic, the $15bn business that is now the world’s largest medical technology group, even sets aside a company conference room for staff to take mental breaks. Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs were keen meditators too.

Any printing company that encourages staff to meditate during office hours will, in the current economic climate and with the managerial conservatism that typifies the industry, face a certain amount of ridicule. Yet 2,000 Shell employees have learned to meditate under a program launched by an entrepreneur called Mandar Apte. One of his maxims is: “Silence is the mother of all creativity.”

Let’s be honest: the average British print firm is about as good at marketing as the British banks were at risk assessment in 2007. If any managing director needed a simple reminder of what they’re probably doing wrong ­– and could so easily do right ­– they could do worse than read Jacky Hobson’s blog on FESPA ( http://www.fespa.com/news/blogs/jacky-hobson-biography-blog-profile-up-marketing-print-industry-publications/taking-notice-personal-sales-marketing-demonstrate-engage-future-business-opportunities.html ). The central flaw, Hobson suggests, is that printers are still far too likely to spend most of their time talking about themselves – and the technical specifications of their equipment – rather than the client and how they can help them. And, given what they do for a living, there really is no excuse for companies that market themselves with printed products that are anything less than beautiful. 

You may be able to spell strategy but do you know what it means? Most business leaders believe they have a strategy but ask them to define it – or to quantify its success – and you are often greeted with the same old blah blah about being the best in class, investing in quality, having the lowest costs, or – worst of all – living deep within our markets.

If you’re keen to clarify your strategy, you could do worse than read Cynthia Montgomery’s The Strategist: Be The Leader Your Business Needs (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strategist-Leader-Your-Business-Needs/dp/0007426674 ). She is the Timken Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and has watched and influenced the debate on corporate strategy that has raged for decades in America. For Montgomery, a true strategic leader is “someone who engages in a conversation about the purpose of that company”. The company’s performance is driven by the quality of that conversation and the way it shapes business decisions.

Montgomery has taught many managers at varying stages of their career and from companies of all sizes. Her students are asked to devise strategies that are critiqued by the class. She remembers one particular business leader from Venezuela who attended many of the sessions and always ask: “What are you doing that’s really distinctive?” Montgomery often asked the same question in a slightly different way: “Help me understand why your business really matters.”

Either way, the answer to that question could improve a company’s strategy – especially if, Montgomery suggests, they are answered not by a CEO working on gut instinct, or coming up with the same old “blah, blah, blah” after a nanosecond’s consideration but after a series of in-depth conversations with senior managers in which the ideas are tested against a variety of situations.

This might all sound too much hassle but it could transform your business. A very experienced non-executive director said whenever he was invited to join the board of a new company, he would visit their head office. What swayed his decision wasn’t the presentations, the profit and loss or the boss’s charisma, it was how the senior executives answered the same question: “What is your strategy?” The more inconsistent the answers, the less likely he was to rate the business. 

Image Reports speaks to Tom McIntyre, sales director, Walsh Graphics.

From the moment you step off the plane at Heathrow, to the second you walk into ExCeL London, your journey to FESPA 2013 will be full of print inspiration.

Why Phil Phillips of Colouration is so enthusiastic about the spot gloss UV capability of the company’s new Oce 480XT. Should you be enthused too?

“Spot varnish application is creating a huge level of interest with prospective clients and allowing us to talk to new customers and offer a point of difference, so it's a real winner for us.” So says Phil Phillips of Colouration, which began putting work through its new Oce 480XT flatbed printer with varnish and roll-feed at the beginning of March. 

Do some serious flirting with your customers and make them feel special to build a long-term relationship based on more than money. Consultant Matthew Parker explains the detail in these top tips.

Nessan Cleary finds that latex compatibility and environmental concerns are the main catalysts for wide-format media development.

When it comes to substrates there are myriad different choices. But there are several trends in the types of substrates being demanded that indicate the overall direction of the wide-format market.

Nessan Cleary findsRoland’s new eco-solvent printer really has been built for speed without loss of image quality.

Roland has just launched a new eco-solvent printer, the Pro4 SolJet XF-640, premiered at Sign and Digital UK and immediately available to order.

There’s a lot of noise surrounding integrated print these days. While still in its infancy, it shows signs of rapid growth. And there are those already making a very decent living out of it; David Hyams is one of them. Having run his own graphic design business for 20 years before getting involved in digital print, he then co-founded Talking Print in 2011, a company that provides audio and video implanted print services. To describe him as ‘enthusiastic’ about the potential for such products is something of an understatement…

How the revamped Northprint hopes to draw the crowds to Harrogate this May.

Northprint is now North Print and Pack, having been rebranded and relaunched as such by Informa Exhibitions last summer. The 2013 show may be staying in its Harrogate heartland but will Betty’s Tearooms be a bigger draw than the show, which has shown signs of flagging but claims to have been reinvigorated in its new guise.

Look at what Epson’s 20/20 Vision survey of retailers’ in-store POS spend says about your future as a supplier.