Open the box

You'd think 40 or so years in the carton business would be enough for anyone.

Hats off then to John Monks, whose retirement must have been amongst the shortest on record. Having crowned his career by helping transmute MY into Nampak, he's spent much of the past year not on the golf course, but at the helm of BPIF Cartons, the British Printing Industries Federation's folding carton arm, trying to instil some of his inimitable self-belief into beleaguered British boxmakers.

Signs are he's making headway. Around 150 carton manufacturers will be attending the first national conference later this month (see story p6), where they will evaluate strategies aimed at securing what is a £1bn annual business. Some suppliers – notably Bobst, Heidelberg, KBA and MAN Roland – will also be participating but, apart from Unilever, no end users.

Monks can already count half of the UK's 150 carton companies as paid-up members of BPIF Cartons. Chances are the positives to be gained by presenting a unified front will have encouraged many of the uncommitted to join their competitors by the conference's end.

The problems confronting the carton sector are hardly unique. Overcapacity and lower cost offshore sourcing have enabled end-users to encourage box-makers to pare margins to the bone. Short-term winners, however, are likely to be longer-term losers. Rather than advocating price-cutting, Monks argues for more networking as the basis for re-introducing some basic trust into the industry.

He's already fixed his gaze upon the Office of Fair Trading. Whilst, understandably, individual carton manufacturers have been reluctant to put their necks on the block in complaining about their supply chain status and trading viability, the trade association is ready and willing to shout foul on their behalf.

Delegates will leave Staverton Park having been told: "Invest, innovate, inter-link or die." In John Monks view, inter-linking could prove the most critical commandment; whether with a direct competitor, a complementary partner or, dare it be said, an overseas supplier.

"The industry has got to accept it's facing some very real challenges. We want to keep as many of them in business as we can, but we have to recognise there are some who won't make it," says Monks. "People have got to think of ways they can augment their bread & butter business with added value elements."

Contrary to the either or choice of a once popular quiz show, opening the box could be the best route to taking the money.