Columnist
To compete with China we will need to focus on skills, efficiency & innovation
Commercial printing companies are unlikely ever to become truly 'globalised' businesses because of the uniqueness of the work that they produce. After all, no two jobs are identical.
Print will have to develop its business model in response to Kindle DX launch
Late last year, I wrote an article about the potential market for e-readers, commenting mainly on the Kindle reader from Amazon.
Viewpoint Risk management
Every business faces risks and dealing with these is a crucial management task. Some risks are generic and at the moment financial risks are top of everyone's list. While the financial situation is...
High hopes for low-cost file-checking
As the number of digital colour presses - or, as I prefer to call them, 'variable presses' - increases, even in this economic downturn, I continue to search for new inexpensive workflow or high-value...
Print must avoid the commodity trap
While researching the history of print management for the recent Stationers' debate on the future of print procurement, I asked Astron founder David Mitchell, one of the pioneers of print management...
Get out of a bind by embracing digital
There's a lot to be learned from books. Specialist library binder Hollingworth & Moss (H&M) certainly has, and in ways the Leeds-based family firm would never have dreamed of when it started more than...
Beware the blue chip on your shoulder
"May you live in interesting times" is supposedly an ancient Chinese curse, although a bit of digging regarding its origin reveals it is more likely a relatively modern, and Western, construction....
Stage is set for inkjets coming of age
If you need any evidence that an emerging technology is ready to break into the mainstream, look no further than a manufacturer's keenness to show it off. Inkjet had been a major talking point in the...
Kodak and Xerox lead the fight against the counterfeiting that blights print
On foreign trips to places like China, many of us delight in haggling for apparently branded goods in the street markets. This is for items we obviously know to be fakes such as Rolex watches and...
Directors, beware: the Companies Act will change the way you do business
Heard the one about the law with 1,300 sections and 16 schedules containing rules that come into force on 1 October? Well, its no joke and if you havent done so you should be looking at the Companies...