In 1846, Marx said that craft industries, such as print, would rarely become really big organisations because of the requirement for the work to be close to the customer. However, an extended industry supply chain that is dominated by paper is not immune to the dynamics of globalisation and, most obviously, the rapid industrial growth in Asia, and China in particular.

The momentum of growth in making paper in China is staggering. The country produced about 15m tonnes of paper in 1990; by 2000, it was a little less than 40m tonnes; in 2009, the volume was about 85m tonnes.  

Chinese paper manufacturers are now making more paper products than all of Europe or North America. By the end of the next decade China will be likely producing more than both Europe and North America combined, probably as much as 160m tonnes.

While paper is in the spotlight, we forget that a wide range of products that are ‘culturally’ owned by large organisations in the west is now almost exclusively manufactured in Asia. Products that are imagined, designed, marketed and sold in Europe or North America are manufactured in China.  

Made in China
Peter Dicken, the highly regarded globalisation economist, calls the process of migrating manufacturing to Asia as a ‘global shift’ in international economics. If you take the back cover off your mobile phone, or look to see where you iPhone or iPad was made, it will reveal China. Amazon’s Kindle is assembled in China.

But what is all the fuss about? The fact is, we have always been surrounded by globalised products. Tomatoes did not originate in Italy, Potatoes did not come from Ireland and Tulips were not native to Holland. The strength of any industry is measured by how positively it deals with globalisation.  

Some countries are taking extraordinary measures to create mechanisms to hold back paper from China and other parts of Asia, even to the point of constructing realities such as environmental concerns. The truth is that China is increasing its forestry cover by more than 14 times the rate of the next-best country (for that matter, China’s automotive emissions standards are more rigorous than California’s – in many cases cars made in the US do not meet China’s emissions requirements).  

History shows that the western world tried once before to construct damaging trade relationship mechanisms with China; this resulted in the Opium Wars and was not a high point in Sino-European history.

The real way to compete against China is to be better, be truly innovative, provide better service and be measurably more efficient.

The common weakness of the printing industry in all parts of the western world is poor commitment to training and skills development. The lack of training has been lamented in academic research into the structure issues facing the sector. Individual examples of dynamic printing firms are often held up as being innovative but, in the end, are they really doing something massively different to the industry norm? As far back as the late 1500s, a criticism of the printer was that "once the manuscript was written, there is no further innovation that occurs during printing".

Many industries have innovation as a vital ingredient of their existence. Firms with smart people create their own future by developing the skills within their business.

Smart firms don’t only examine how they do business today; they have an eye on what the customer will want tomorrow and beyond. The iPad is a classic example of modern industrial innovation. It was not a product people needed when it was released, yet soon they will not be able to live without it.