What do you think will be the greatest opportunity for and threat to the print industry next year?

For CFH, in the print and mail industry, the Royal Mail poses both the biggest opportunity and the biggest threat. The new Postal Services Bill has allowed Royal Mail much more freedom in both its actions and its pricing, and so far this has all been to the detriment of direct mail and transactional mail customers.

CFH will be making an important announcement in the new year about how we will be responding to Royal Mail's approach.

For the print industry as a whole, the biggest threat is the Government's changes to the banking regulations. Current regulation from the FSA is largely responsible for the reduction in funding available from the banks, to the detriment of the industry.

Although I welcome the separation of investment banking from retail banking, the suggestion that even higher capital requirements will be placed on the retail banks does not bode well for the availability of funding of the print industry.

The biggest opportunity for the wider print industry remains the internet and IT, combined with digital print. CFH have developed our Docmail print and mail service where all orders come directly via the internet, and automatically run through our digital print and mail production.

We currently handle up to 2,000 orders per day through that route, growing at 20% compound per quarter. That level of order processing would not be possible without a fully automated, internet-linked system. Many print opportunities of this nature remain for those companies with the skills to seek them out.

What do you believe is the most under-recognised aspect in printing that is likely to gain more prominence in 2012?
It is certainly time that paper as a medium regained its real status. The idea that using paper is bad and online is good is crazy. From an environmental point of view, paper sequesters carbon. Each sheet of A4 Paper takes several grams of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Paper is not only easy to recycle, but recent research suggests that paper does not rot in landfill when it is thrown away. Anyone who has tried to compost tea bags or other paper will probably confirm that! So every tonne of paper we produce takes more than a tonne of CO2 out of the atmosphere on a largely permanent basis.

At the same time, direct mail is still the best medium in terms of ROI for winning new business. We have tested every type of marketing, as we have built our Docmail product. We have found that Google Adwords is very good for ROI, but it comes second to direct mail, with most others, whether online or traditional, falling a long way behind.

What do you hope to get out of Drupa 2012?
We are in the process of carrying out a tender to refresh all of our digital and mailing equipment, so we are very much hoping to confirm the equipment we intend to buy at, or soon after, Drupa.

What new technology do you expect to see at Drupa 2012 in your sector?
I expect to see improvements in continuous digital colour technology – possibly alternatives to inkjet. I hope to see improved 'paper wrapping' equipment as an alternative to enclosing in envelopes.

What new technology do you expect to see at Drupa 2012 in other sectors?
Digital everything. The limits of digital printing are still a long way away. We will also see more offerings in 3D printing. I am not sure if this fits with traditional printers, or if it is a whole new industry, but the ability to print anything as a 3D object is a very interesting development.

What do you think the main trends will be at Drupa 2012 in your sector?
I would like continuous digital presses to be higher quality and print on a wider range of substrates at a lower cost. I fear that instead they will be bigger, faster, and more expensive.

What trends do you think will emerge at Drupa 2012 in any other sectors?
Digital print in packaging and large-scale newspaper production can't be far away.

What can the industry do to increase its profile next year?
It's time to stop be apologetic about paper. Instead of bowing to the 'recycle, don't chop down trees' brigade, we need to shout from the rooftops how good a medium paper is for the environment and the user.

What will you do differently next year?
This will be announced during January!