“Stop talking b*****ks and get the beers in” was the slogan on the t-shirt of a young man sitting in the 5th row of the audience at the Serbian seminar in Belgrade last week. I could not resist stepping down from the stage with my microphone, shook his hand and commented “You must have heard Peter Kiddell and me speak before I guess!” which had the desired effect of making everyone laugh, before returning to the stage and handing the microphone back to Dusan to officially commence proceedings. Dusan introduced all the speakers - Peter, myself and Professor Miodrag Todorovic from Belgrade Technical college  - as well as Nikola Mitic, a lawyer by profession who was kindly undertaking all the translations from English into the Serbian language.

We had sixty three people assembled in the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce, with its excellent facilities for the second FESPA supported event held in Serbia where the main speaker was Peter Kiddell. It is some time since Peter and I have appeared together at a FESPA supported seminar so it was a real pleasure to hear him deliver three excellent, well prepared entertaining presentations in his inimitable style. Peter’s knowledge of screen and digital printing is considerable - I have often said that in my view, if you have Peter and Michel Caza together, I suspect that they would be able to answer any question asked of them on screen and digital printing – but to have either of them making presentations at events such as this is a real pleasure. On this occasion, Dusan Golobovich had asked Peter to make three specific presentations for screen and digital printers in Serbia and he did not disappoint with the content of any of them.

 

The first was on how to sell print services abroad – something that a few of the audience were already doing – with an emphasis on developing innovative opportunities and niche markets. Peter stressed that this was not easy but stated that it was essential for any printer considering such a venture not to compete on price alone but to try to entice new business with innovative ideas and solutions (there were clear signs of innovation in Serbia), along with exceptional product design, first class quality and on time delivery. Listening to Peter, you realise that much of what he says is common sense, yet so many businesses around Europe often fail to see the obvious. However, when the content is put together and illustrated in a simplistic way, nobody could fail to see the benefits of adopting these simple but effective strategies. He also spoke at length about the way in which the company should be promoted, including staff appearance and behaviour and by always ensuring that staff always do whatever they say they will do. Peter said “If anybody in your company says they are going to do something and then doesn’t, a customer could be lost forever”. He concluded by stressing the importance of a high profile on the internet and showed a very simple but very effective website of a UK company, Screenprint Productions whose website focuses on people and what the company does with very few words but lots of very clear images showing their portfolio. Peter also stressed as essential the need for the website to be fully functional in English (in addition to Serbian) if they wanted to undertake business internationally. Please do take a look at Screenprint Productions website (www.screeprintproductions.com ) and you will see what I mean. 

 

I followed with my sustainability presentation (adapted from Steve Lister’s great presentation he has made for FESPA on many occasions) in which I focus on the Popai green approach in POS and POP. With so much emphasis on environmental considerations and more and more legislation being enacted by both the EU and nationally, one cannot overlook the desire by the majority of big companies to reduce their waste as well as their carbon footprint. Additionally, they need to satisfy shareholders by meeting CSR policies, so this is becoming a big issue in so many ways. Companies like Unilever are demanding that printers producing material for any of their many products do so using the Popai green project connect tool with the aim of reducing costs, energy usage, water usage and carbon footprint. I blogged about this a couple of months ago so please look up the earlier report on the FESPA website which provides a lot more detail.

 

Peter’s 2nd presentation was on buying a digital printer and he started this by stressing that before spending any money, it was essential to know exactly what work would be required of the printer, what budget is available and then to fully examine all options. This should include talking to users, gathering information from the internet,  determining if he equipment would be able to produce existing work more profitably, would it open new markets, will it allow your company to be different from you competitors, could it satisfy any niche market and will it pay for itself in 24 months. Once answers to these questions were known, then the investment could be made but remember that generally price of print continues to fall so it is imperative not to just sell print but to sell a product.

 

Peter then went through a variety of different machines available from €10,000 to over €1.2m and reiterated points I had made earlier about sustainability and the need to use sustainable print processes, sustainable substrates and sustainable inks as more and more customers were seeking to reduce their carbon footprint and wanting to know the impact of the print process being used for their products. This is certainly increasing.  He also explained the various ink options now available including many “green” ink solutions. The conclusion of this presentation was that when you have a shortlist of possible machines to buy, take your own test files to each printer vendor and ask them to print them and time the process from start to finish. This should help you gain a better idea of how much time each machine will take to do your job and you won’t be relying on what the vendor is telling you about the speed of the machine and what it is capable of.

 

Professor Todorovic then gave an overview of the print industry in Serbia which is going through tough times at present like in many other countries. Although screen remains an important print process generally divided between textile, graphics and industrial, due to the decline in manufacturing in Serbia, industrial printing has seen some significant reduction. Graphic printing is also in decline. He made a comparison between two companies – one in Serbia and one in Australia. The Australian company was using the same number of squeegee blades in three months as the Serbian company used in three years. He had noticed that neighbours Croatia were gaining lots of orders from leading European manufacturers  and they received much support from the EU (Croatia is hoping to become an EU member by 2013) so perhaps if Serbia can progress its own application to join the EU, the situation could improve. Another problem in small companies is age of equipment that cannot deliver the expected quality as well as a lack of skilled staff but with the introduction of digital technology, some companies are now benefiting from greater flexibility, with improved quality and larger print runs. However the overall outlook remains fairly bleak.

 

Peter’s 3rd and final presentation was on colour management. Dusan was expecting me to deliver this (what I know about it one can write on the back of an envelope) but Peter was only providing a general overview since, as he said, “To deal with this topic properly will take a full week and even that would not be enough” so Peter picked out the key issues that were useful to both students and experienced printers. Starting with how we perceived colour and how that perception could be turned into a mathematical equation using  the L.a.b. colour space. Peter then detailed the use of  ICC profiling and how the  RIP managed the characteristics of individual machines. He emphasised the importance of the surface characteristics of substrates.

This was a really successful event with a variety of topics to keep the delegates interested and involved. Dusan had booked a great venue and Nikola did a truly fantastic job with all the translations.