Will the principle of 'shared resource' find favour with UK printing companies?

We should find out soon enough because this is exactly what Precision Printing is doing with its tie-up with Italian firm Pixartprinting, to bring the Pixart-style web-to-print offering to the UK.

It seems that here on the small island we've been slower to embrace this sort of model than our continental cousins. Talking to Precision MD Gary Peeling about the offering at Northprint, he made a good pitch. The investment dilemma for printers is tricky enough, never mind the fact that for many companies it's proving impossible to attain the funding they need to re-invest.

As Peeling sees it, the shared resource option gives a printco access to the latest printing technology, instantly, and pretty much risk-free. "Printers can develop a market without risk or commitment," he says. Early customers seem to like it, especially the fact that Pixart doesn't insist on its own livery and jobs arrive in a plain wrapping.

It's going to require something of a change in mindset for some people, and perhaps a leap of faith too. But I can see the appeal. "Once you get your mind around the fact that you don't need to own the equipment to get active in a market, it's quite liberating," Peeling reports.

It's another variant in the list of new business models for print that we all need to pay attention to.