I was wet and fed up!

It was a day when it was pouring with rain.  I had planned to catch the bus in to a client meeting.  And now here I was cursing.  Because the bus had been full!

It had sped past without stopping – and showering me with more water into the bargain.  So now I faced an embarrassing call to my client.  I had to reschedule the meeting and possibly miss my sale.

Right now, print buyers face being in a similar predicament.  If they don’t start planning the next few months, they could find that the presses are full.  And then they will face embarrassing calls to their clients too.

How can you avoid embarrassing calls to your client?
Keeping clients happy means keeping jobs on track.  But we are now coming up to the busy time of year in print.  

Here are three reasons why this year may be even busier than previous one:

1)     Things will be busy as there is less web capacity
There has been a fair amount of consolidation in the web market recently.  Polestar, bgp and Walstead have all taken presses out this year.  

There has also been a reduction in gravure presses.  So this means some gravure work is also being produced by web.

Most web printers now only have limited capacity left for the end of this year.  In fact, the majority that I have spoken to are already booked solid for the next few weeks.  

And that will have an impact on the litho sector too.

2)    The litho sector will be affected by web capacity
If buyers find that there is no web capacity left for them, they will have three choices:

• Delay production
• Cancel production
• Move to litho production, despite the extra cost

I believe that some companies will be forced to produce work by litho in order to meet their requirements.  Traditionally it has been reasonably easy to find litho capacity, even at the end of the year.  This year may be different, especially if you have a sizeable job.  

And it’s not just an overflow from the web sector that will cause this.

3)    There are still likely to be printers that go out of business
Many companies are still fighting to win work at sensible margins.  And some have taken bad business decisions.  These decisions have forced many out of business.  But many feel that there are more businesses that will go under.  

This may seem strange at a busy time of year.  However, as printers get busier there is increased strain on their cashflow.  So we are likely to more printers close their doors in the coming months.

But surely September is too early to worry about print capacity
Many print buyers are planning their Christmas schedules right now!  If you don’t start thinking about your end of year production soon, you may find that you face problems.

These problems often cause a busy January for printers.  They are busy fulfilling orders for which there was no capacity in November and December.  

How do you avoid being scheduled into the January backlog?

Here are ways to keep your print on track at the end of the year
1.    Talk to your internal clients about their needs.  Get them to be precise and to give you the schedule dates that they are expecting.
2.    Talk to your printers about what capacity they have available.  Consider booking in jobs earlier than normal.
3.    Research some alternative options for print.  Who could you use if your printer was full at the end of the year?

This may sound like a lot of planning
But, trust me, there’s nothing worse than standing in a queue when there’s no space for you.
==========================================================================================
P.S.  I’ve just relaunched my website.  I’d be delighted if you popped over to http://www.printandprocurement.com to have a look.