A couple of stories have given me pause for thought this week, the most obvious being the reader comment trail involving much opprobrium that resulted from the Webmart/Simon Biltcliffe wins at the Excellence Awards.

But more of that later. News that Williams Lea had moved to a smart new London HQ in Paddington after the best part of 200 years in the City reminded me of a conversation about the company I had with a print boss a while back. Said print boss runs a "proper" printing company. You know, one of those businesses that has millions of pounds worth of printing equipment sitting on its factory floor.

He talked about how much he admired the bravery and vision of the Williams family in allowing what was a sizeable family-owned print company to take a radical new direction under the management of a non-family member, ditching its printing presses on the way. In the past decade Williams Lea has gone from a £90m to £900m business and will in all likelihood become (if it isn't already, awaiting 2008 accounts) our first billion-pound company since the days when Rexam headed PrintWeek's Top 500.

Williams Lea is now one of very few truly global print players, although its business is of course no longer just about print, rather it is business process outsourcing of "corporate information solutions". If the Williams family had spent all their time bleating about the prices on offer from the bloke down the road, or from Centurion, would any of this have happened? Of course not.

Whether you love Williams Lea or loathe them, it's inarguably a great business success story about spotting opportunities and embracing change. Which brings me on to Biltcliffe. He's not everyone's cup of tea either. I've seen some snitty comments along the lines of "buy some presses Simon" on the forums. Why on earth should he? As it happens he's probably spent more on software development than many of his detractors have spent on heavy metal anyway. That's his choice because his business vision is of a trading platform built on highly sophisticated software. Disagree with it, fine. Don't deal with him, also fine. But don't knock the fact that he's actually got the drive, vision and ambition to both have a plan and put it into action.

Some of the comments on the site this week put me in mind of a quote about change I scribbled down a while back: "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory".