Page 50 - Print21 Magazine March April 2021

Association News
Rebuild and reinvent
PVCA CEO Andrew Macaulay says printers adapting to the new environment was a
adapt rapidly in 2020, and we will see businesses continue to learn and develop from those experiences, always faster than our politicians. Critical skills are managing distributed workforces – with those who can working remotely, while ensuring that performance optimisation and teamwork
is maintained. The year has started with a shutdown in Western Australia, where
that state government had evidently not learnt from its prior experience, nor from the Victorian government debacle. Damaging all SMEs, the WA
gov also re-inserted confusion into essential industries categories, thus taking WA
back to a May 2020 situation. Victoria followed suit, with business bearing the cost of that government’s ongoing failure
to manage hotel quarantine. Businesses that are able to
work remotely and outsource production will be able to manage business continuity and government ineptitude.
Rebound
Trade shows will rebound. There is clearly demand from consumers and suppliers. Vaccines will assist, as will adaptive methods of physical presentation. To measureable success, 2020 saw innovation from Visual Connections and PVCA, both delivering events and trade shows virtually. The reach for Visual Impact, PICA, the National Print Awards and Print2Parliament! was a multiple of 10 times normal real events, with thousands
of individuals engaging. The Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher, and the Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, and Pauline Hanson, leader of One Nation, actively participated. This is an xample of innovating and overcoming problems, the solution reached will enhance the traditional real events and trade shows. The webinars provided by PVCA in 2020 will continue. Media Super is the principal supporter of these critical industry events.
The successful collaboration of Visual Connections and PVCA over 20 years has now advanced into an exciting Joint Venture, events and trade shows to be delivered through the jointly- owned Visual Events.
Integration
This ear will see packaging
and labelling continue to
grow. Seamless integration of traditional print marketing across digital platforms will continue to grow, and is an opportunity for printers to be the primary creative partner rather than simply a supplier of one component of the campaign. Communication services will be key. Critical skills for prinshop owners will be managing distributed workforces, while ensuring that performance optimisation and teamwork
is maintained. Developing partnerships or alliances with printers in other states or regions, to avoid shutdowns
and ensure business continuity, is important. Printers should
be curious about emerging technology and social patterns, embrace change, understand your customer, make your customer your partner, and evolve to be the single shop complete solution.
The end of JobKeeper is going to see some businesses needing to make hard decisions. PVCA
is there to provide IR and HR advice as these critical decisions are made and the difficult
part of delivering outcomes commences. The need to rapidly adapt sales, operations and production patterns is going to see some printers thrive, and others struggle.
PVCA will continue to be
the “Voice of our Industry”, ensuring that printers are heard by policymakers and regulators. PVCA will continue to provide the essential IR/HR advice
that employers need. PVCA
will deliver an enhanced SGP certification, and will facilitate the wonderful showcase
of our industry excellence, which is the PICA, NPA, and Print2Parliament! series of events. 21
key theme of last year, and will be again in the vaccine year.
2020 was the year no one planned for. A buoyant economic outlook in January rapidly turned to Covid-19 shutdowns of presses across the country. Government responses were not initially coherent, nor were they aligned between states, so rumours spread further confusion.
Industry participants used JobKeeper to sustain dramatic downturns in turnover. Sadly, some sections of our industry, particularly those that serviced the tourism and hospitality sectors, were forced into complete shutdown.
Packaging and labelling bounced in many sectors, in response to consumer changes of habit and demand. Despite this uplift, we have seen some long-term players either exit the industry, or restructure into smaller and leaner operations.
Innovation
Where industry players
could adapt presses or supply chain, there was great and rapid innovation. News in 2020 focused strongly on government, but it was entrepreneurial SMEs that stepped up to the challenge. Printers in all states diverted plant to manufacture PPE and hand sanitiser. Australian printers were in fact the fi st source of PPE when stocks disappeared. Printers who had not previously been in the packaging and labelling space also pivoted sales and production in that direction.
PVCA delivered considerable clarity to our industry throughout 2020, for instance in ensuring that there was a clear defin tion of essential services, ensuring that print
Clarity: Andrew Macaulay, CEO, PVCA
and packaging was included in business categories allowed to continue operation, and running weekly industry webinars keeping industry abreast of latest facts, assistance and risks.
Running over 30 webinars, PVCA saw nearly two thousand individuals register. Media Super kindly stepped up and supported these webinars. We were in constant dialogue with state and federal authorities, ensuring that employer issues were heard and understood by policy makers. During the year PVCA met
with the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, all relevant federal ministers and opposition shadow ministers, and appropriate departmental leaders and
regulatory bodies. This replicated at state level.
as
PVCA provided sound governance for our industry superannuation fund, through ongoing contribution of industry representation. Presciently, the industry fund has been planning for the future, and was well placed in that process as Covid impacted less advanced plans from other funds. Media Super also supported the PVCA events programme, greatly assisting the rapid innovation required as Covid restrictions affected assembly of people.
This ear will be a year of reinventing and rebuilding. Any vaccine rollout is not expected to be effective until late in
the year. Printers learned to
50 Print21 MARCH/APRIL 2021
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Voice of our Industry