1 July 2005

BPIF aims to secure £15m for technology and training in the next 3 years

At yesterday’s Annual General Meeting, BPIF chief executive Michael Johnson outlined a series of commitments and priorities for the coming years. “The message is pride,” said Johnson, “We’ve made bold steps over the last year but there is much more to do to ensure that we remain the pride of Europe and continue to be able to take pride in our own industry. I’ll be focusing on growth, adding value and strategic change in the industry. And, vitally, continuing to do all this in close partnership with other industry bodies.” Johnson publicly set a long term goal to secure funding in the region of £10-15m between 2005-2008 to fund projects and initiatives such as technology mapping and development, a new sector wide Print Academy, government funded training and replicate successful regional projects such as Print Yorkshire in other parts of the country. The BPIF will be undertaking a Technology Mapping exercise later this year, with the aim of identifying areas of technological promise and planning their development and implementation. The results will be used to highlight potential opportunities to seek further funding support for the industry from the DTI’s technology programme. Johnson also took the opportunity of the AGM to set out the BPIF’s vision for a Print Media Academy, which would impact on business improvement and manufacturing excellence by addressing non-traditional areas of print training and go beyond technical tuition to cover marketing, management, finance and strategy amongst other strategic priorities. Johnson went on to set himself and the BPIF some challenging goals in terms of membership size and impact on the industry. “Our long term goal is to secure 80% of the industry into membership to allow us more influence with government and stakeholders. We’re working hard for the whole of the industry and we need everyone to be engaged.” Johnson also noted that whilst profitability has been generally improving across the board, there is no room for complacency, pledging to help double the profitability of the industry in coming years.