Page 28 - FINAT Yearbook 2015

YMC MEMBER REPORTS
LET’S PUSH THINGS FORWARD –
BRINGING THE BEST TO OUR INDUSTRY
With the availability of social media, associations are turning into virtual platforms of knowledge exchange and lively communities enabling discussions and dialogue on pending topics. FINAT is no exception and FINAT’s Linked-in group is approaching the 2,000-members benchmark. Since its launch, numerous discussions have taken place and blogs were posted, including this thought-provoking appeal by Christopher Jones, UK/Ireland Sales Manager at Alphasonics UCS Ltd., and an active member of FINAT’s Young Managers Club.
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Cards-on-the-table-time. What you’re about to read may not necessarily be what many in Labels want to hear. However, there is a problem the industry faces, which is not being treated with the concern many of us feel it merits. It requires a collective effort to remedy, for the sake of its progression and indeed its survival.
Following the recent Labelexpo show in Chicago, a few things occurred to me. Most prominently is that this industry, which we all are dedicated to pushing forward as Young Managers, is getting older and older. As an executive under thirty, I’m most definitely in the minority and while that is something to be embraced, the overriding feeling I experience is that of concern when I consider the future of Labels and Packaging.
Firstly, I’m sure most of you will see apprentices and young people on workshop floors across the world, which is to be recognised and congratulated. Giving the youngest opportunities through employment is vital to any business. However, what I see very little of are young, highly educated professionals in Labels and Packaging. Far few young people are given managerial roles and responsibilities that give them the chance to prove their worth to a business.
‘OLD BOYS’ NETWORK’
We all know that this industry is in the large an old boys’ network. This has its advantages of course and not completely a negative thing and has served us extremely well up until now.
THE NEWS PRINTING INDUSTRY EXAMPLE
On this note, let’s analyse the news printing industry as an example. Newspapers are being slowly but surely replaced by online media. Fleet Street bosses are, in the largest part, of a certain age and are famously seen as the cigar smoking old hats that have shaped the way we’ve received news until recently. This long established industry that has been constantly printing papers found on our breakfast tables and tucked under our arms on the way to work is being usurped by online journalism and in a big way. How many of you even buy a paper these days? In our heart of hearts, most would acknowledge that we use our computers, iPads, smartphones to receive the news we want. And we have a wider choice of where to get it. If you
“Giving the youngest opportunities through employment is vital to any business. However, what I see very little of are young, highly educated professionals in Labels and Packaging.”
Let’s be entirely honest, these people were and are pioneers in terms of developing technologies and processes that have kept Labels and Packaging at the forefront of print production while the rest of the print industry is under threat from the ‘digital age’.
compare the average age of news printing with the ages of those developing and shaping the online platforms that the very same work is being distributed, the differences in age ranges are striking. The same stories are being read but in a different way. It serves as a stark warning.
FINAT YEARBOOK 2015 |