The obvious threat to us all, regardless of what sector of our industry you work in, is government cutbacks. This will inevitably mean less work in terms of printed material coming from the single biggest customer that our industry has. We already know that ink on paper is being reduced by local authorities who are turning to the internet. 

The challenge to printers, which will create new business opportunities for them, will be to be more versatile in the services they offer their customers which won’t be just ink on paper and technical know-how but a complete package of business services which include printing as just a part of it. Other companies, such as RR Donnelley, have been extremely successful in the last few years in offering this kind of service, but are still the largest printers in the world and are continuing to expand.

What is the most under-recognised aspect in printing that is likely to become important for 2011?

A recent survey conducted by Unite shows that we have just over 200 apprentices in the whole industry in the UK. Although succession planning is more challenging now that the default retirement age will be abolished next year, the lack of young, skilled people in our industry is a ticking time bomb. I can foresee us returning to the bad old days where companies will have to start poaching just to get skilled staff to run their machinery or we will have members working 72-hour weeks whilst tens of thousands of young, enthusiastic people shuffle around in job centres or take jobs in call centres. 

How important do you think Northprint will be?

The inevitable consequence of any of these exhibitions is that they will stimulate investment which, has to be a good thing for our industry but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s on most printers minds at the moment - although there are some notable exceptions. As much as it is good to stimulate investment, I don’t think it will have too much affect on the UK printing industry for 2011.

What can the industry do to improve its profile?

The first thing printers need to do is to stop carving each other up. For many years they have been playing the dangerous game of last man standing or the strongest will survive to corner the remains of the markets that are left. This has resulted in a continually spiralling down of, not only prices, but terms and conditions of our members. 

The two groups of people that printers are notoriously bad at listening to, is their employees and their customers. I know that there are some exceptions to this, but they need to cherish their employees, as much as they do their customers, that must be a start to improving our profile.

What will you do differently next year?

A Danish colleague said to me the other day, referring to his industry, "we are all in the same ship" and, of course, he is right. But if my members are expected to row that little bit harder or longer for reduced rations then we would expect the people on the deck steering the bloody thing to have some idea where they are going. 

It is my passionate belief that we should be accountable to each other for our actions and decisions which will help us to adapt to change for the future. The only way we can do that is through more collaboration, the only way that that is going to be achieved is if that collaboration has credible formal legal structures, so I will be working even harder in 2011 to ensure that we establish those structures in as many print companies as we can.