Common Reasons Why Some Commercial Printers Fail

By Author: Brent Durell
Total Articles: 172
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With the many printed materials around us in the form of brochures, flyers, posters, postcards, marketing kits, and the like, you would think that all commercial printers are making a killing in their business. While many of those in the commercial printing business have stayed there for decades, many have also closed down. And this is not for lack of customers but actually because of poor management.

While financial management is key to a business’ success, it is not the not the only reason why a commercial printer has closed down. There might be some of them that have been using too much funds for expensive operations, such as hefty representation allowances for the sales people or redundant employees, but there are also other reasons behind losing money in commercial printing.

Wrong Computation - While there is a set formula for computing printing costs, of course there is room for error especially if the computations had been redone several times in order to accommodate negotiations. Sometimes, the quote ...
... has already been submitted to the client but when reviewed, the printer realizes the mistake but it is too late to make amendments. If you already have a relationship with the client, you may admit mistake and give them the corrected quote. But if not, you will have to live with the losses, especially if it was your first time to close a deal with them.

Damages - If you do not check on your production staff always, chances are, they are always incurring printing damages because of carelessness. Each piece of paper that is wasted may be considered loss, along with the ink used with it. Of course your quote should include test prints, but they should not be too much.

Pilferage of Materials - If you do not hold a regular inventory of your stocks, your production people might be taking home stocks through the back door. These could be film, ink, or paper. They could use these materials for whatever reason they have, but that means losses on the management’s part. Employees can sell the supplies or they can use these for their home-based desktop publishing business. If you are not careful, your workers can be one step ahead of you and you will be financing their own personal gain without a return of investment on your part.

Wasting Time - A good production supervisor is able to manage the time of their staff so that they will not have a lot of time wasted. Each minute that they are in the production means the company’s assets. If they are idle, that means they are using up company resources without generating income. And this will be much worse if they do not have work during regular working hours and then they would have to spend overtime for a rush job because of a miscalculation of the production supervisor. This is really a big loss for the company.

Getting into commercial printing could be a good business to venture in. But instead of just acting the part of an investor, do make regular visits to your printing press. Do not just check the books or hit the president’s office. Go to the production area and see what your people are doing. The best thing to do is to make your visits unannounced so that they will always be kept on their toes. Even these random visits will already lessen the activities that will are detriment to the company’s success. Being a commercial printer may be profitable—if you know how to manage it well.