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A print buyer from a large UK book publishing company once told me that his job was breathtakingly simple – “you merely follow the cheapest price around the world”. While there will be some buyers out there who subscribe to this viewpoint, one person who doesn’t is Shaun Hodgkinson, purchasing director for Penguin Group (UK). Hodgkinson concedes that price is important, but he is a firm believer you can achieve a good deal and buy responsibly at the same time.

As part of the international media group Pearson, Penguin (UK) has a strict corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy, and this means that while price and quality boxes need to be ticked, the company must also fulfil its responsibility to its customers and suppliers.

Hodgkinson, who joined the company in 2006 following stints at numerous publishing companies including The Book Studio, Quarto, Parragon and AA Publishing, was appointed as part of a production restructure initiated by Penguin (UK) group production director Liz Allen. Along with another colleague, Alison Davies, he reports directly to Allen at the firm’s recently revamped London HQ on the Strand, and helps to oversee a 90-strong production team that works across household publishing brands, including Penguin, DK, Puffin, Ladybird and BBC Children’s.

Hodgkinson explains that, in crude terms, Davies looks after the operational side of the production function and he looks after the group’s purchasing strategy, although he does have some operational responsibilities. Ultimately, however, he says the production team employs an extremely flexible approach to the way it goes about its business.

“It’s very much a team effort here – it’s not at all prescriptive. When we are reviewing our manufacturing strategy, we get the management team together to sit down and talk about what we need and how our suppliers have been performing, and from this conversation we form a consensus. I find that you are much more successful in what you do if you have everybody on board from an early stage.”

The group’s circa £90m annual print budget is spread across a broad range of products, from straightforward mono books through to highly complex novelty publications. Print jobs are allocated out to companies across the globe, with mono jobs typically manufactured in the UK or mainland Europe and the majority of four-colour and the more complex, less time sensitive work put together in places like Singapore, Vietnam and southern China.

Responsible thinking
“We’re always looking at emerging markets, but it’s not just about price,” explains Hodgkinson. “CSR is at the forefront of our thinking and we won’t rush into anywhere. Pearson is a global business with offices around the world, so we pool our resources. We talk within the wider group and if someone has experience of manufacturing in one sphere, then we share our knowledge. If someone came to us and said ‘I can do that for 20% cheaper than you are paying at the moment’, we would make sure we do our homework on that company. It’s not just about what a business says it can do, it’s also about how it treats its workers and how the business engages with its environment.”

The skill, according to Hodgkinson, is being able to deliver a quality product that meets all of the group’s CSR requirements at a competitive price. He has a core list of suppliers that fit this criteria, and they are awarded deals on an annual basis, or longer as appropriate.

“We set budgets with our suppliers, and say we would to like to turn over this amount of money across this product range. If a firm knows how much product we want it to handle, it makes it a lot easier for that company to plan. But it’s also important we deliver on these promises – usual business caveats applying.”

Hodgkinson says that one of the most important things for him is building a strong relationship with suppliers, and ensuring that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

Ticking all the boxes
“Management attitude is important. If a company’s aims are the same as ours and it has a good CSR policy in place, it makes things much easier, because all there is left to talk about is price.”

While the majority of four-colour work is manufactured in Asia, the company does currently use four UK printers, but the bulk of time-sensitive four-colour jobs are shipped out to firms in mainland Europe. Hodgkinson admits that there has been some realignment of prices in the UK to bring the market more in line with European rivals but, in turn, European printers have had to adopt similar tactics to stem the tide of work that has slowly been flowing to Asia.

It may come as a surprise to some, but one country that is winning a fair amount of work from Hodgkinson at the moment, and bucking the general shift towards Asian manufacturers, is Slovakia. “We use two Slovakian printers, and they are very good. They deliver quality work, tick all the CSR boxes, and their prices are also very good.”

Ultimately, Hodgkinson says that location is only a small part of the purchasing decision-making process. What it boils down to is finding the perfect fit for the demands of a particular project.

“You have to match the right product with the right supplier, rather than crowbarring something in that doesn’t work,” he explains.

Increasingly, this will mean scouring the globe to find a pool of suppliers that not only meet price and quality demands, but also subscribe to the group’s own CSR aspirations. It has already implemented a number of green initiatives at its London HQ, ranging from the use of 100% recycled paper for office printing and photocopying purposes through to encouraging all coffee drinkers to take home their grounds in a biodegradable bag for putting in their compost.

In terms of bigger picture stuff, the company switched to printing all monochrome and trade paperback titles on Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper as early as 2006, and last year it planted the first of more than 40,000 trees at its own Penguin Wood, at Botany Bay, in south Derbyshire. Penguin is also a member of the World Wildlife Fund’s Forest & Trade Network (FTN), whose stated aim is to improve the management of the world’s production forests by using the purchasing power and influence of UK businesses to bring about change. In addition, by the end of 2008 all of the UK group’s suppliers must have ISO 14001 accreditation. Hodgkinson believes if the group acts and buys responsibly, it can, ultimately, use its financial clout to bring about positive changes.

“We have to use our considerable buying power responsibly, and if you link the budgets that you set to a supplier’s performance on ethical policies, then you can achieve this.”