Pride In Print organisers say that the success of smaller printers at this year’s awards prove that the little businesses can compete successfully with the big guns of the industry.
Some of the major awards in 2012 Pride In Print went to either niche companies working in cities, or to the regions. However, Dave Gick of Auckland’s Logick Print , which took out this year’s Supreme Award as well as the Promotional Print category with its Jacob’s Creek Logo sheet, said he has never regarded Pride In Print as being small business against big business. He says, “For Logick Print, it has been about how well we produce a job that we can be proud of, so the competition starts with us first. How have we interpreted the job from the client, how well have we produced the job, is it the perfect job?
“The competition has always been part of our everyday business. We have styled our training with our team, each process, the quality checks and the end value of the job for our client, around the result from Pride In Print.
Gick adds that judges have no knowledge of who entered the piece they are examining, so there is no advantage shown to a bigger business. He says, “Any business looking to enter Pride In Print must understand that the competition starts internally first at their workplace. Master perfection in your workplace, then when the job is entered in Pride In Print it is judged on its own merit.
Chris Smith, managing director of Sentra Print in Auckland, which won the Specialty Products Category and also the best in process award for finishing for the Matins Vespers CD, says that for a small-to-medium printer, Pride In Print provides an avenue to have work assessed by experts within the industry. He says, “Success gives you a meaningful and tangible reason to celebrate with your staff, suppliers and customers who recognise that the work has been independently judged and is worthy of celebration.
“We have never felt up against it with regard to the larger print companies as we are able to take on smaller complex work and have the skills and time to ensure we achieve the best results. We are very particular with the selection process of our entries and out of 20 items, we entered four that we felt were up to the standard required to achieve awards. In fact, we received awards for all four.
“We received a phone call a few weeks back from an Australian company looking for a printer in Auckland. One of the comments made was that they were impressed at the number of awards we had received as detailed on our website. So if that is the reason we were selected by them, Pride In Print works for us!”
Peter Halstead, print manager for APN Print Hastings, which won the Web Process Award, says, “We never even gave a thought to bigger plants. We have a strong believe in what we do and what we produce so we realise that we can foot it with anyone. Also it is a lot easier to motivate a small crew to achieve than it is to motivate several crews over many shifts.
“All the press crew now want to be the one that is in charge of the job that wins Pride In Print. It has brought good healthy competition amongst them all. With this attitude it should be a lot easier for us to produce winners in the future. Winning the awards has brought all staff a lot closer together which has enabled us to have a real sense of team work throughout the plan.
“Our customers know we can achieve a really high standard of quality. This means they can have a confidence in what we do and what we can produce on a web offset press. Customers now expect top quality all the time and it is our challenge to consistently deliver this to them.”
