Simon Fairclough is a fresh face. When we meet at the City-boy favourite Balls Brothers bar in central London’s exclusive St James district, his time in the print industry totals just 47 days. In that time, Fairclough, the Scottish Print Employers Federation’s (SPEF) well-spoken and energetic new director, has had a rollercoaster introduction.
Fairclough comes to the role after a long career in marketing and public relations, but landed the job as director of the SPEF and the Scottish Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA) after replying to a newspaper advert. He officially took up the role on 3 January, as just the fifth director of SPEF since it was founded in 1910. He says that if he were to remain in the job for the average number of years served by his four predecessors, he’d be 70 when he retired from the post. “I think that it’s safe to assume that my own tenure is likely to reduce the average,” he jokes.
The post was made available when the well-respected Jim Raeburn retired after 23 years. Fairclough started full-time just last Friday (9 March) and counts himself fortunate to have inherited “a strong balance sheet and a sizeable stock of goodwill among the membership”.
Advocate and service provider
SPEF, Fairclough says, must act as an advocate for the Scottish print industry, ensuring constituency interest groups are properly and persuasively represented. While he argues that SPEF members “deserve clear, relevant and timely information,” the role of support service provider, possibly aligning it with organisations such as the BPIF and Intergraf, is also key.
Fairclough, who has an MBA from Edinburgh University, has ambitions for the organisation and hopes to drive the industry forward. He speaks of cultivating the right conditions for innovation and sustained competitive advantage. “It’s clear that circumstances have been conspiring over recent years to whet the industry’s appetite for change.”
Take the internet. Fairclough emphasises that if change teaches one thing, it is that to remain the same is “commercial suicide”. He borrows the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of ‘creative destruction’ to explain how new technologies force out the old and herald the new. He also cites Harvard professor Clayton Christensen’s refining of the idea to talk about ‘disruptive innovation’. Fairclough argues that the rise of the internet has proved about as disruptive as it gets. “For the print industry, this places even greater pressure on those charged with investment decisions. There will inevitably be winners and losers.”
Fairclough sees the industry facing “aggressive competition and globalisation”, but says that he was attracted to the role by the idea of joining up the industry’s disparate supply chain. “I want us to help showcase all that’s good about printing,” he says. “Design is desperately important. I want to see more of a connection with the process.
While Scottish printing prepares to celebrate its 500th anniversary in 2008, Fairclough argues that a vital task for the organisation is to help the industry prepare for the future. “That means promoting and celebrating innovation from within,” he adds. “I want to ensure that we celebrate the proud history and heritage associated with printing in Scotland, while helping to cultivate success in the future.”
On overcapacity, he says that the market has well-rehearsed ways of correcting supply-side imbalances, but that it is generally unforgiving. “For larger, heavily-invested and highly geared organisations, systemic overcapacity can be expensive,” he explains. “Competing on price is only ever a short-term solution – innovation is king.”
Trusted local media
Fairclough says that he considers himself British rather than English, after spending his childhood split between Yorkshire and Perthshire. He has lived in Edinburgh since 1999 and in terms of each country’s media, he sees important differences. In a small country such as Scotland, he says, the local press tends to assume “a significance in people’s lives that is greater than their counterparts in the larger, more media-rich parts of the UK”. He adds: “It’s trusted.”
And it is trust that is the “life-blood” of any membership organisation that sets out to champion sector interests. “It’s what promotes information sharing, industry-wide cooperation and collaborative endeavour,” he says. While it is still early days for Fairclough, he aims to make SPEF “the glue that brings all competing member firms together.”
SIMON FAIRCLOUGH CV
2007 SPEF – director
1994-2006 Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre –marketing and business development director
1993-1994 Barkers Scotland – launched Glasgow Solicitors Property Centre
1992-1993 Stirling District Council – environmental and housing campaigns manager
1987-1991 Charles Barker Traverse-Healy – city and corporate PR
1984-1987 Welbeck Public Relations – consumer PR
