The program started off with Luc Desjardins, CEO of Transcontinental Inc., the second largest printer in the country. He engaged in a good, frank discussion about Transcontinental’s problems and opportunities, and shared his thoughts on the underlying problems of the industry. These included selling prices going below costs and sales reps who feel the customer belongs to them, not to the printer. He mentioned that size does not solve all the problems but just gives rise to a new set of challenges. One of his most telling comments was: “It’s not the size of the company in the fight, but the size of the fight in the company.” If you are interested in the complete text of his speech, we posted it on our Graphic Monthly website. Unfortunately, his ad lib comments and answers to questions following his address—possibly the most interesting remarks—are not recorded.
Ken Wong, a professor at Queen’s University who led a seminar titled Survival in a World of Margin-Sucking Maggots, was fascinating and brought up many common-sense ideas. He discussed how what seem to be such little things can suck the profits out of a company. I had to leave before the end of the convention so I missed the sales seminar by sales expert David Prentice on Saturday, but from all reports it was one of the best of the whole event. In fact, some of the weakest seminars this year were better than some of the best efforts from previous conventions. Those who put the program together should be commended. Instead of turning the convention into a holiday, it was a practical, information-packed event and well worth the trip.
Unfortunately, there was the small, little problem of attendance. Registration has been falling over the last several years and this time out only about 25 printing companies were represented in Montreal. For an industry with more than 9,000 establishments in its ranks, that is just a plain lousy turnout. Of course, having some members of OPIA boycotting the convention did not help.
CPIA has finally got the content right, something I have complained about for years. (Though I don’t think they changed it just to shut me up.) Instead of a holiday for printers it is now a bottom-line educational experience for printing company owners.
Now all the association has to do is tell the rest of the industry about the annual event. To jack up attendance, the convention should be promoted to the entire industry, not just to the CPIA membership which numbers about 350 printing companies. This is a lot smaller crowd to pull from than the 9,000-plus locations in the industry. For printers, a CPIA convention should be one of the first points of contact in getting involved with the association, not the last. The benefits of attending the convention do have to be well promoted. Well-designed brochures trumpeting the bottom-line value of going should be sent to the entire industry. The ideal of printers having to come out to support the industry just will not fly anymore.
To CPIA’s credit it has fixed the number-one problem it was facing with the event, namely content, . Now it just has to tell the rest of the industry about it. We are in the communications business, are we not?