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Joanne Gardner tracks down the solutions to your technical troubles

Q I’m trying to gather some background information on the printing industry for a tender bid – do you know where I can find some facts and figures? Also, do you have any idea where I could find out how many UK companies have employees between 100 to 2,000?
Stephen O’Sullivan
Via email

A Well, a good place to start for general information on UK industry would be the the Office for National Statistics (www.ons.gov.uk), which produces masses of free data. However, if we’re talking specifically about print, the PrintWeek Top 500 and the BPIF should be your first ports of call. According to the Top 500 – a veritable wealth of information – there are 216 companies with between 100 and 2,000 employees. For a more exhaustive source of stats, try the BPIF’s Kyle Jardine (kyle.jardine@bpif.org.uk). The BPIF’s website (www.britishprint.com) states that the UK printing industry employs approximately 153,000 people across around 11,000 companies. Of those businesses, 75% employ fewer than 10 people and account for 20% of industry turnover, while 0.5% of companies employ more than 250 people and account for 25% of industry turnover. Only around 440 companies employ more than 50 people, with around 90% of firms employing fewer than 20. The top 100 companies account for 45% of all employees. Stat-tastic!

Q I work for a small book publishing company that is branching out into print production. Can you help me to get in contact with a suitable consultant that could work with us on implementing a functional print shop at our facilities?
Andrew Paavola
Ohio, US

A Howdy! Good to see our humble magazine has reached the Land of the Free. As it turns out, one of your print bodies, the National Association of Printing Leadership, or NAPL (001 201-634-9600), provides a consultancy service. In its team of consultants, there are two who are said to have extensive experience with in-house operations. Client coordinator Robin Schabacker is very keen to get in touch with you and has offered a no obligation chat (001 201-523-6307 or email rschabacker@napl.org). In fact, she just passed your details onto one of the consultants, Ray Prince, and he will be in touch shortly.