Running with the theme ‘Rising to the Challenge: Finding Opportunities to Grow and Thrive’, the event was held at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry.
The day was centred around four conference sessions, including six presentations and a panel discussion that took questions from audience members, broken up by several opportunities to network at the supplier expo.
Speakers included Lance Hill from Eight Days a Week Print Solutions, Anthony Rowell from Tradeprint, Elizabeth Bowerman from Stephen Austin, Rob Finnie from Nettl, Mike Hughes from Latcham, and Simon Cooper from Solopress.
Many shared their own personal journey through the industry as well as the types of initiatives, investments, and improvements implemented within their businesses to put them on a solid growth path.
The interactive panel discussion, called ‘Business Growth: By luck or by design?’ saw a panel of printers, agencies, and finance experts discuss and debate whether there is a formula for business growth that can be identified, or whether it is more down to being in the right place at the right time.
The panel featured Jamie Nelson of Compass Business Finance, Adam Short from The Imaging Centre, Lucy Swanston of Nutshell Creative, Sarah Kilcoyne-Guilliam from Kingsbury Press, and Allwag Promotional Merchandise’s Graeme Smith, also current president of the IPIA.
Speaking to Printweek at the event, Brendan Perring, general manager of the IPIA, said: “We really focused the theme this year because we have a focus group and we speak to them regularly about what they want to see, and what they think is the most important thing for the conference to cover.
“And universally from the focus group, which ranges from printers that have three people all the way up to printers that have 200, is that there is no getting away from the fact that, whilst the industry is back to decent levels of demand, businesses are carrying a lot of weight from Covid debt, to a slow and sluggish return to growth, having to cut staff, electricity, paper etc.
“There are a lot of businesses out there that have got a good team and solid products and are still solvent and doing ok but they don’t know where to go next and they want to grow.
“So we wanted put on talks from six successful printers who can all say ‘we know it’s tough, but this is what we’ve done and how we’ve grown’. Our panel discussion can also pass the knowledge on [and delegates] can take away a few nuggets to take back to their business.”
The supplier expo included Antalis, Canon, CarbonQuota, Compass Business Finance, Duplo, eProductivity Software, Fujifilm, FourPees, HP, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Premier, PrintIQ, Ricoh, Roland, Route 1 Print, Solopress, Vivid, Xerox, and Xmpie.
Fujifilm Europe digital press and print manager Mark Stephenson told Printweek: “The format is good because there is lots of networking time and that’s sometimes the most valuable thing.
“I think it gives you a lot of time to take in what’s being spoken about in the conference and then talk to people about it in the breaks, which are long enough to be able to do that, so it works for us. We’re here to capture some of those people as they walk around, and have conversations with them.”
David McGuiness, UK marketing manager at PrintIQ, also commented: “It’s always a good one-day event, it brings in a good focus group of people that want to talk to you and meet and learn. The IPIA’s events are easy to do, they’re well organised, and we always come away with something.
On the focus of the conference sessions, he added: “People are taking more care of their business and developing them following Covid, and want more visibility. With challenges like the cost of materials, everybody has got to keep focused – you’ve got to make money.”
