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In times of straitened margins and difficult trading, corporates are increasingly coming to see the print buying function as a means of taking out cost. An experienced print buyer can manage projects in a way that adds value to the organisation: their up-to-date knowledge of production processes and materials, together with effective planning skills and good judgement on quality, can make a big contribution to an organisation’s bottom line.

But where and how to arrive at this gold standard of skills, expertise and experience? For most print buyers, who typically arrive in their jobs without much, if any, specialised training, it’s a question of learning on the job. It’s hardly a secure, professional or efficient way to train: it can leave the buyer feeling undervalued at best, or at worst, like Jill Connolly, corporate communications manager at US company Analog Devices, “just plain terrified” of the potential mistakes they can make: “I had no training – absolutely zero. I had come from a background in typography. And yet my budget was into six figures,” she says.

Qualifications
Dani Novick, managing director of Mercury Search and Selection, says that, increasingly, employers are
focusing on qualifications for their print buyers. “We’re seeing more and more that favoured candidates for buying jobs are ones who have some form of qualification to back them up,” she says. “Particularly, a qualification in print procurement from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, because it gives buyers a good basic grounding in devising a print procurement strategy.”

In a business environment where costs are in the spotlight, some mistakes can cost more than the print – as in the case of one UK buyer who was sacked on a charge of professional negligence after ordering £12,000 of print that was colour-inaccurate and had to be reprinted. (This buyer took his case to an industrial tribunal, arguing that he was not provided with the necessary training for him to do his job.) But it seems an indictment of the burgeoning print buying sector that the majority of its practitioners are without formal training.

The courses
For print buyers who want to do formal qualifications, it can be a challenge even to find courses: unfortunately there is very little available. PrintBuyer uncovered just a handful of courses dedicated to print buying run by various colleges or universities around the country.

The London College of Communi­cation’s course is probably the most fully featured: a series of nine evening classes run over three terms, it covers basics such as printing processes, negotiating strategies, quality assurance, principles of costing and estimating, specifications for added value versus cost, and technical issues such as dot gain, trapping and proofing. At the other end of the scale is Leeds College of Technology’s one-day course on Print Appreciation for Print Buyers, covering the technical basics of various print production methods.

Pira (Printing Industries Research Association) also runs a short course relevant to print buyers which, if not formally qualified, at least carries the stamp of recognisable authority in the print industry. The Print Production Training Week, while it’s designed primarily for printers, provides a detailed understanding of the essentials of print that could be extremely useful to print buyers.

The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) offers a one-day workshop in Print Procurement. The workshop, which can be attended by non-members of CIPS, takes a brief look at print technology, but focuses mainly on developing a print procurement strategy, highlighting areas such as control of costs, performance and information flow; it is led by purchasing rather than print professionals, and could be useful in conjunction with more technically orientated courses.

Aside from the established colleges and print institutions, there are also independent training providers that run courses in print buying. ABC Awards, one of the main UK providers of NVQ qualifications, offers an award in print buying, based on 60 guided learning hours, intended for print buyers working on the job but backing up their daily working experience with study.

XL Training runs a course dedicated to laying bare the mysteries of digital print for print buyers: the day’s course covers the various digital print technologies together with the front-end capabilities, particularly in terms of variable data.

The UK is short on official bodies for print buyers, but in the US they’re slightly more advanced. The Print Communications Professionals International Association, the US’s main print buyer body, runs two detailed certification programmes in Professional Print Production and Digital and Variable Data Printing. Run by distance learning, with on-site tests to accredit each stage, the courses cover technology including print, paper and ink, together with a range of skills for buying, including communications, specifying, reviewing, negotiating and effective planning.  

Experience, of course, is recognised by many employers as a necessary substitute for formal qualifications in a print buyer. It’s not uncommon to see recruitment ads for print buyers stipulating “no formal qualification necessary, but at least five years’ experience of handling projects with a spend of £10,000 and above”. And just as valuable as experience is a fat contacts book; the two together can be a winning combination.

Interactive learning
Naturally a highly effective way of gathering knowledge and skills is to talk to the printers themselves. Most printers will be delighted at the opportunity to build a lasting relationship with a buyer by explaining in detail how print works. “A buyer can get much better training by working on an interactive basis with senior people at the printer,” says Juliette Butler, project manager for Vision in Print. “Technical understanding of the job is absolutely critical. Printers could lead on this – not passing on their knowledge is a wasted opportunity.”

Some printers, recognising the opportunity to be proactive, have lately begun to formalise their training offerings to customers. Take Simpson Group, for instance, the Tyne and Wear large-format specialist that has just spent £33,000 setting up the Influence Academy, effectively a training course lasting six months on a part-time basis for customers: “Most of our clients come from a marketing background and they have limited technical print knowledge,” says managing director Mark Simpson: “This course demonstrates techniques to free up resources, minimise errors, tighten the briefing process and improve efficiency.”

Similarly, Potts Printers is currently organising “training tours” of its new £4m Northumberland factory for graphic designers and print buyers. “This will increase the information flow between print and design,” says Potts managing director Shaun Currie.

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TOP TIPS ON TRAINING COURSES
- A good proportion of any print buyer’s job involves an up-to-date knowledge of pre-press, print and post-press. Look for a course that will give you detailed information about how the processes work – with factory-floor tours if possible
- The same is true, if not truer, of paper: look for a course with a good introduction to how paper is made, coated and recycled
- Print buyers need good interpersonal skills. Courses should include techniques for negotiation skills; positively addres­sing issues such as underperformance; and team-building
- There are no industry-standard systems used in print buying, but a good course might include tutorials in Microsoft Excel and Word, together with project management software such as Apple’s FileMaker or Microsoft Project

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HOW IT'S DONE AT TARGET DIRECT PRINT
Target is a mid-sized print manage­ment agency specialising in the planning and procurement of complex direct mail campaigns. Managing director Peter Frings (pictured) deplores the absence of formal training for print buyers, and takes a combined approach to the training of his staff.

If the new recruits are “complete novices” about print, “we’ll send them to a private training company where they do one or two courses designed to introduce them to the basics of print technology. That’s an absolute essential: the essence of good print buying is the match between the requirements of the project and the capabilities of the supplier, so you have to understand the processes.”

Target also does a lot of on-the-job training, where its key suppliers offer factory tours and even formal sit-down tutoring in print processes. “Typically they’ll visit several different types of envelope supplier, together with an inline web finishing house, and they’ll also look at laser personalisation,” Frings says.

 

“The factory tours are invaluable, because it’s often hard to explain the principles until you see them in the flesh.”

Finally, by way of embedding the knowledge, Target also runs its own training courses for clients – delivered by staff. “Teaching is an excellent way to learn,” Frings says, “so we have a couple of 90-minute modules that we deliver in the morning and spend the afternoon in a factory tour relevant to the client’s type of print.”