The second round of Future Print Business Transformation ‘Leadership Briefings’ commenced earlier this month, with more than 150 companies around the country registered to kick off their their involvement in the program over the next few weeks.
The first workshop, on 10 February, was held at Printing Industries offices in Auburn, New South Wales, and reflected the project’s aim to help businesses transform themselves to meet the challenges of the future.
Lead Advisor Allan Ryan addressed the group, outlining the proven elements of success within business. He then used their feedback to evaluate their own processes against other businesses, and announced the results of the first round of business benchmarking, a process John Clements, Future Print business advisor, says many companies found very enlightening.
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| Allan Ryan addresses a recent Leadership Briefing session. |
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| Business owners and key decision makers found plenty to take note of at a recent session. |
“The benchmarking is a very important tool which is available free of charge to all businesses who sign up for the Future Print Business Transformation Project,” explains Future Print Business Advisor, John Clements. “Generously sponsored by Media Super, it gives participants a chance to anonymously evaluate their performance against ‘like’ businesses both within the graphic communications sphere and, on certain criteria, more widely.”
The results revealed how businesses were performing in areas including revenue per employee, gross profit, net profit, return to the business owners and even areas like insurance payments.
“The resulting report is an extremely helpful first step in identifying areas which could benefit from attention – in fact, one business owner commented that he would be having a discussion with his insurance broker immediately on his return to the office,” Clements reported.
“Another participant described his efforts until now as ‘trying to run a four minute mile without a stopwatch’ – a great analogy: They thought they were on track, but now have a very different, and much clearer, idea of where they stand. It left many participants with furrowed brows, but also encouraged many by showing that they were performing well in many areas and while some things might need to change, in other areas they can just keep on doing what they’re doing.”
Allan Ryan also informed participants about the Future Print training courses that have been developed following the first round of the program and are now available to Future Print participants at a greatly subsidised rate, as part of the Federal Government funding for up to 500 training places.
“Importantly, these include not only registered Certificate and Diploma courses but targeted training designed to deliver specific skill sets,” said Clements. “We very much appreciate the assistance of the first group of Business Transformation Project participants in helping us develop these programs and, if comments from this meeting are anything to go by, it seems they have hit the mark.”
A brochure outlining the available training courses, which include Strategic Leadership, Digital Design, Sales & Marketing for Success, Process Driven Organisation, Building Innovation Practice into a Business and Valuing the Business & Exiting the Business, was distributed at the meeting to a very positive response. Lachlan Finch of Rawson Print, summed this up saying, “These courses are definitely relevant to the challenges SMEs in the printing industry are facing, and I’m sure everyone who participates will be keenly interested in what is on offer.”
Clements says the businesses who attended the briefing and are working their way through the process are taking advantage of different offerings with the guidance and help of their Future Print Business Advisors, adding “they are unanimous in indicating that they are already enjoying enormous benefits from the program.”
Leadership briefings are open not only to print service providers but all participants in the wider graphic communications and media space. Sessions will take place around the country until 27 February, on:
| Maryborough | 20 February |
| Bendigo | 20 February |
| Gold Coast | 23 February |
| Brisbane | 24 February |
| Sunshine Coast | 24 February |
| Sydney | 26 & 27 February |
“There are limited places left for businesses who would like to benefit from this government-funded program, which provides a range of information, resources and support to help businesses prepare for a secure and profitable future in graphic communications,” Clements says.
“With almost 100% of businesses who attend a Leadership Briefing signing on to continue in the program, it’s important that any businesses who are still considering whether to get involved realise that once the project has 350 companies signed, then it’s closed to further enrollment. There is no guarantee such an opportunity will ever be offered again, so there is no time to lose.”
Click here to book your place at a session near you, or go to www.futureprint.org.au and select the date, venue and time that suits.
Future Print
www.futureprint.org.au
