The printer
In the free-market capitalist world, where trade is governed by the fundamental rules of supply and demand, it can be very difficult to impose regulatory controls - just ask Gordon Brown and most of the other world leaders. The print industry seems to be working to the rule of ‘Devil take the hindmost', leaving printers across the breadth of the industry gasping at some competitors' prices, which operate to very negligible margin levels. Some contributory factors could be the desperate search for cash through debt factoring and the seemingly infinite number of spurious pre-packs. This is having a massive impact on margins, hampering the industry's attempts to move forward on an equal footing.
Mick Hinchcliffe, sales director, AB Co Wellan

The print buyer
I used to own a B1 print company, so I've had exposure to unrealistic prices as both a seller and a buyer. Two years ago, it was becoming increasingly common for our sales team to report prices that were 30% below ours and after analysing the costs we could only conclude that someone somewhere was happy to produce for little or no margin. Now that I am effectively a buyer (albeit a small one), I can see that the cost of print is still in a spiral. Buyers who see print as a commodity will continue to put pressure on prices and many more companies will go to the wall as a result. The days of spending money on throwaway print campaigns are disappearing fast, so companies have to start evolving better, and producing more sustainable printed products and ideas to tempt customers who still have marketing budgets. The more creative companies stand a chance while those that simply seek to fill empty presses will eventually go.
Mark Smith, managing director, Fifteen65

The print manager
In regards to printing companies, ‘sustainable' means getting a fair price for a job that will allow them to break even or, dare one even mention it, actually make a profit. Pricing can only become sustainable if printers stop selling below cost. And this is where the problem is. Those that do sell below cost, lose money and those that don't lose business - and even more money. It's a Catch-22 situation and there is no easy solution. Pumping up production capacity to reduce costs compounds the issue by raising the workload needed to break-even. Thus, too many printers end up chasing the same jobs. You can't blame them for price-cutting; after all, if you were starving, would you turn down a bowl of rice on the promise of a steak? Pricing will only become sustainable if printers nail their costs and refuse to sell below them - or when 50% have gone out of business. The industry, it seems, is making that choice right now.
John Roche, managing director, Haybrooke Associates