It was six months ago today that Patrick Martell took over at the UK's largest print group, and in those 183 days he has overseen the closure of two plants and the loss of hundreds of jobs. But despite these swingeing cuts, he's far from being your typical hatchet man; he's a St Ives lifer, joining as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1980, who speaks passionately about the business's future and the need for change in the industry. Unfortunately for him, he just happens to have taken charge at "the most challenging time in the group's history".

Seeing as this is your first major interview, certainly with PrintWeek, I suppose it makes sense to start at the beginning really. When did you join St Ives?
I joined when I was 16, in 1980, as an apprentice at a company called Fletcher & Sons in Norwich, which was where the book jackets were printed for Clays. I got into the industry purely by chance. When I left school, I wrote to a whole raft of companies asking for a job and I had three offers: as a trainee accountant, a plumber and a printer. I took the latter and never regretted it.

I went to college to learn letterpress printing and how to make plates using albumen from eggs. It was quite a culture shock going straight from school into work, but it was a job that filled me with satisfaction because at the end of each day, I could see a pile of, if I do say so myself, excellently printed work and I could say ‘that was a good day'. That's one of the things I miss; I've noticed that the more you move into management the harder is it to quantify what is a good day.

In 1990, I moved to Bungay [St Ives Clays] where I was in charge of [at different times] waste and paper management, and then customer services, business systems. At various times I also ran an IT department, a production control department, the warehouse and then I moved back to the manufacturing side. Eventually I was made manufacturing director for Clays and then, 20 years after I joined, I became managing director. It makes it all sound so easy when I say it like that.

So when did you first think that one day you might end up running the group?
I've no idea. Equally, I had no ambition to. I joined - admittedly, through luck rather than judgement - a good business where I was given many opportunities to learn and progress. I also learned from my mistakes. I didn't know anything about management when I first got into it, so I learned the hard way. I've obviously had the benefit of training and experience since those early days, but essentially I was simply given opportunities and I grasped them with both hands.

You keep talking about luck, but there must be more to it than that. The people that gave you the opportunities must have seen something in you, even in the early days.
I guess that must be true. My own experience has always made me think about how one of our greatest challenges is how do we, as a company, make sure we unlock the full potential of our people. I don't pretend to be unique, I know that there are lots of people within our organisation that, given the same opportunities as me, could go on to achieve more than what they're doing now.

Do you think that's one of the key benefits of working your way up though a company - that you're more aware of those kinds of issues?
Yes. It's vital to keep your feet on the ground, as it were. In all of the different jobs that I've had, you learn something different from all of them, but a key feature of all of them has been the importance of people.

Of the roles you've held within St Ives then, which one have you enjoyed the most?
This one.

Good answer. You mentioned earlier that you wouldn't describe yourself as an ambitious person...
Well, obviously I am ambitious, but I suppose my driving force has always been to do a good job. That's been my focus - making sure that whatever job I have, I do it to the best of my abilities, rather than worrying too much about what I'm going to do next.

Speaking of worrying, you've taken the reins at a time that I think you yourself described as the most challenging in the group's history – when ‘D-Day' came on 17 April, did it fill you with dread?
Not at all; I just saw it as a fantastic opportunity. We're a fantastic company and, yes, times are particularly
challenging for St Ives, as they are for the industry as a whole and the wider economy. There's no business in the UK that isn't feeling the pressure from this recession, and I think the printing industry is particularly affected by it, because it's facing a combination of technological change and the challenging economic climate as well. If you look at print, it touches almost every other hard hit sector - advertising, housing, publishing, etc - so there isn't one bit that isn't exposed.

One of the issues facing the print sector is that a lot of the change is structural, not cyclical, and the recession has, I think, just speeded up that change. If you take the magazine sector in particular, I think there will be a massive structural change in the market.

Do you mean there is one now or there needs to be one?
There is one. If you look at the publishing sector, I think some of what has changed will not return. For example, a lot of the advertising that has moved online won't come back on to the page. The danger for everyone is that we have to be objective about it: while we may all hope it will come back, hope isn't much of a plan.

Obviously, you've had to make some tough decisions in terms of job cuts and plant closures in your relatively short tenure, is that part of your strategy of pre-empting the structural changes in the industry?
Yes. There's a structural change in the market, so there has to be a structural change in the supply side. We need to work with our employees to make this transition as best we can and as painlessly as we can, but of course there will always be casualties. It's desperately sad, but it's a fact.

But there must have been close to 400 job cuts across the group in the past 10 months, which is 10% or your workforce - do you think that's it now, is the structure of the group where it needs to be?
We've responded to the current climate and I think we've done the right things, albeit they've been tough decisions to take. As to whether or not there going to be any more tough decisions to make, I think inevitably, yes. We need to think of the size and shape of the business in relation to its ‘fit' within the markets that we operate in.

It's not only the operational shape of the business that you are changing; you also appear to be building a new management team following the departures of some of your high-profile directors.
That's fair; there have been quite a few key management changes. And I'm looking, although not exclusively, at people from other industries.

That hasn't gone unnoticed. Both Lloyd Wigglesworth, group managing director for commercial products, and Giles Richell, managing director of the web division, were from outside print: the retail and publishing and the automotive industries respectively. Bearing in mind your own background, they were interesting appointments.
Yes I know. But, as I've said, I think technology has impacted hugely on the print business and I think there's a lot the print sector can learn from other industries.

But outside talent doesn't seem to have a particularly good record in the print industry?
Well, we've done it successfully at Clays: the managing director there came from publishing. The customer service director worked at Ford and the finance director doesn't have a print background either, but the other directors were ‘home-grown' - it's about getting the team dynamic right. In the same way that the print industry can learn a lot from other sectors, I think print has a lot that it can teach other industries.

Our industry is one of the few manufacturing industries where you make bespoke products to order, and from a manufacturing management point of view that's pretty unique. Most manufacturing industries make things for stock and then sell it. Whereas we sell it and then make it and by and large there is no stock. As a result, we tend to have very dynamic, responsive management teams that are very good at reacting.

Are there any other areas of the management team you're looking to bolster further, or do you have the team you want in place now?
We've got to get our operations running as efficiently as we can and I think there is plenty of talent from inside the industry and outside the industry and it's a question of getting the right people in the right slots and getting them to work together.

You mentioned working together, so perhaps now's a good time to ask you about print management. In February, Communisis's outgoing chief executive Steve Vaughan described the Sainsbury's deal you won from them as "very low margin work", and in June this year, you said that the Royal Mail and Sainsbury's contract wins were "less beneficial" in terms of margins and added value, even though they had increased sales. With hindsight, do you honestly think that taking on these kinds of print management contracts was the right thing to do?
Yes I do. As far as St Ives is concerned we are absolutely thrilled to be working with these kinds of high-profile customers. One of this group's greatest strengths, as well as its people, is its clients. If you look at our customer base it includes a huge range of blue-chip companies. One of our challenges is to better understand these customers, where they are going and provide more added-value services to them as well as print.

So, given the opportunity, would you take on similar kinds of projects in the future?
Absolutely, yes.

You operate in many different sectors, from books and magazines, to point-of-sale, packaging, direct mail, commercial, etc. What do you think will be the core products for you in five years time?
I can't really answer that. What I can tell you is that our focus in five years time will still be our customers. I've now been with the company for 29 years and the most important thing in my role as chief executive is to know what our customers want and where are they going. You mentioned that I was building a team, well that means that there are people around me who can run St Ives on a day-to-day basis, which enables me to spend a significant amount of my time with our customers.

That must be quite difficult moving from an operational role, having built up such an intimate knowledge of the business. Are you not tempted to dabble?
No. Well, yes... occasionally. But there are some very talented people within the business who, very politely, encourage me not to dabble. It's actually a very exciting thing to go from a hands-on role to bringing in a team of people that do it and do it better than I did. That's actually really enjoyable. In my time at St Ives, seeing individuals and teams develop and just get on and do it, is immensely rewarding. Don't get me wrong though, probably the single most exciting thing about being chief executive is that I can have things done exactly the way I want them done.

I want to ask you about the web offset magazines market now. It's probably the toughest sector in print - do you think that's likely to ever change?
No and I don't think just sitting trying to ride out the storm is the right strategy. I know I've said it before, but there has to be structural change. Unfortunately, that will result in some companies falling away.

Obviously with Walstead, the owner of Wyndeham Press Group, buying Southernprint in July and Garnett Dickinson purchasing Acorn Web Offset in August, consolidation in the sector is once again very much at the top of the agenda. Do think that's something that St Ives could or should take a leading role in?
We could if we wanted too. Whether we want to is another question. There's certainly no point in buying businesses just to close them. And that's what needs to happen.

What's the alternative then? Wait for the weaker companies to wither and die?
I don't think that would be an acceptable strategy for our shareholders. So no. We can't just wait to be the last man standing; we have to make the decisions in the best interest of our business.

But if you're not going to play an active role in consolidation, then surely the only alternative is to let the others slug it out and try and remain above the fracas?
Yes, but our strategy of focusing on quality - in terms of where our customers want a higher level of service - is the right one. Admittedly, it may well be that in the future our magazine business is smaller, but that is the area to focus on - the products where there's a need for a higher level of service and you can actually get paid enough money to make a profit.

I guess that's the way that publishing is moving too, because if a publisher is so obsessed with cost...
...then the title will just move online. We have to focus on the products where there's a reason for them to be a physical product. The commodity end of print is going to be the titles that go online, and I guess it will therefore be the last man standing in some sectors, or who can stagger on for the longest anyway. If all you have is being the cheapest supplier, in any market, then you have to ask yourself is that sustainable? With new technology coming in all the time, the answer is probably not.

Compared to your rivals, you're a relatively cash-rich company, if you're ruling out consolidation in the web sector, are there any other areas you might look for deals in?
There's nothing at the moment. Without wishing to sound like a stuck record, it's about our customers and where they're going. So we would look at the goods and services that they're looking at, even if it's not necessarily print.

What if I was to flip the question: based on your market capitalisation versus your asset value you're a pretty attractive acquisition target yourself, is that a concern?
We're a public company, so if someone wants to try and buy our shares they can. But my focus is to try and manage the business as best I can, not to mess with things I can't control. All I can do is try and deliver value to our shareholders.

What about global ambitions? Obviously you've now sold all of your overseas interests and retracted back to the UK. Would you try again, or is it a case of once bitten twice shy?
I wouldn't want to rule anything out, but again I think the business is now focused on the UK and in terms of the products our efforts are focused on high-quality, time-sensitive products and services. Which pretty much means it's a domestic market right now.

What are your thoughts on the general economy?
In terms of print, I think some areas will improve faster than others. Advertising will pick up as the level of confidence rises. Some areas I don't think will come back as I said earlier. Some areas have withstood the recession better than most, books, for example. As far as the general economy goes, I have my personal opinions, but I don't think people will be interested in those.

I think they might be.
Well, I think the business environment will remain tough. Access to money is difficult and if you can get it, it's expensive. And I suppose that is going to be the single biggest challenge to the print industry.

CV Patrick Martell

1980 Joined Fletcher & Sons (part of Clays) as an apprentice printer
 
1985 St Ives buys Clays
 
1990 Moved to Clays of Bungay as head of waste and paper management
 
1991 Head of production control and customer service
 
1992 Business systems director – Clays board appointment
 
1994 Becomes manufacturing director, St Ives Clays
 
2000 Promoted to managing director, St Ives Clays
 
2003 Joins executive board of St Ives Group
 
2005 Leaves St Ives Clays and becomes managing director of Media Products (group role encompassing books, magazines and multimedia)
 
2007 Promoted to managing director for UK operations

Jan 2009 St Ives announces Brian Edwards is to step down as chief executive, to be succeeded by Patrick Martell

17 April 2009 Martell officially takes the reins at St Ives