Global thinking leads to local printing

On the face of it, it seems that the redundancies have resulted from the fact that CUP intends to carry out more of its printing overseas. As a result, 133 British jobs will go. Nobody, including CUP I am sure, will be happy to see more redundancies on home soil, but the fact of the matter is that these losses – at least in part – result from the globalisation of the publishing industry. And as Gordon Brown pointed out only last week, in the current global recession, we cannot give in to the lure of protectionism.

CUP’s decision to reduce its UK workforce has come about due to the fact that around 80% of its publishing sales are now located overseas and the need to offer improved turnaround times and – crucially in a recession – to reduce transport costs, has proved irresistible.

Sector in flux
According to Lightning Source UK managing director David Taylor, CUP’s decision – though upsetting for the UK – is indicative of the changing nature of the industry, influenced by both globalisation and the evolution of digital print and with it, print-on-demand (POD).

“It was a very sad day that they made that decision because the history of printing at CUP goes back centuries, but we’re seeing that requirement from other publishers as well,” he says. “Not only does localised POD save a considerable amount of money, because you’re printing for a sale and not printing for inventory, but also you’re saving a significant amount of money in removing the need to transport titles and stick them in warehouses.”

The argument for POD is a simple one. It saves money on storage, distribution and pulping costs, waste – in terms of book returns, and it is more environmentally friendly because there are fewer ‘book miles’ between the printer and the consumer. It has gained a lot of momentum in the academic book market where the cost of each book tends to be quite high and sales are hard to predict.

MPG Books Group managing director Tony Chard has witnessed the rise in demand for POD from academic book publishers. “It cuts out the shipping costs and it improves speed to market, which in the internet age is clearly one of the biggest issues the printed product faces,” he says.

Lightning Source, which is a supplier to CUP in America and the UK, is another preacher of the virtues of POD. “The POD model allows a digital file to be taken and printed when there is a sale, rather than for inventory,” explains Taylor.

“That fits the publishers’ requirement very well. If you look at markets like the Far East, Singapore and Australia, where CUP do have facilities, it makes enormous sense for them to be able to fulfil locally where they can.”

But what does it all mean for the UK and for UK book printers? According to Chard, it doesn’t have to be bad news because the move towards printing in-market is a two-way street.

“A UK publisher will send us an order – say it’s for 500 of which 200 are for the UK – we print the books for the UK and shoot the file over to our American partner and they then print and distribute the remaining 300,” he explains.

“Yes it erodes part of your volume directly from that UK publisher but if they’ve got an American office and work is coming back vice versa then broadly speaking it balances out. It’s just a changing model.”

Local partners
Taylor agrees: “We think the POD model has got a great future in supporting businesses like CUP, because we can print in market. We’re a trusted partner and we already have over 10,000 of their titles set up in our POD system.”

So, while the redundancies at CUP remain a sad fact for the university, it’s staff and the UK as a whole, the inexorable move towards POD has presented publishers with a very strong argument, both financially and environmentally, for printing overseas for overseas markets and, as Chard says, “It’s just one of those things. You know it’s going to happen, so you’ve got two choices: you either embrace it and offer a wide range of services that your customers are interested in or don’t offer the service and you lose everything else.”