FINAT launches 2007 drive to improve members’ trade

FINAT is poised to launch a New Year initiative to help its members win more business by giving them access to an internet presentation to promote an even wider use of self-adhesive labels.

The 76-page presentation is targeted at end-users to increase their knowledge of self-adhesive label systems, illustrate their benefits and flexibility and will be provided to FINAT members to use in their sales drives. It will also help members to train new recruits into their companies. 

‘This is just one of the ways we are ensuring that 2007 will be a good year for our members as we increase the exclusive benefits that we bring to them through their membership,’ said David Harrisson, president of FINAT, which is the global association of self-adhesive printers and their suppliers.

The presentation has been compiled by senior members of FINAT who are acknowledged experts in the use of self-adhesive labels and will be made accessible available for distribution ‘in the first quarter of the year, as soon as the finishing touches are made,’ said Harrisson. ‘Our members will be able to show it from our site and use it to inform their existing customers and to attract new business by explaining all the advantages of our labels.

In his New Year message to the trade Mr Harrisson emphasized just how much FINAT is now doing to bring value-for-money benefits to its members ‘that more than help to pay the membership fees.’ 

He said: ‘2007 will be a very busy year as we enhance and advance those benefits that will include discounts on events, publications and facilities to enable our members improve their business opportunities. There will be added emphasis on education – both for printers and for their customers – through tutorials and as well as presentations at our annual conference in Berlin this coming June. The three-times-a-year Labelling Vision magazine will also continue to add to these educational initiatives to end-users by explaining what is new in our trade.’

FINAT is already offering discounted English language courses to help its international membership capture more world business and will run its prestigious annual label competition which gives member-printers the opportunity to promote themselves to the world.

New on the FINAT agenda will be the Label Printer Forum. This Forum aims to provide an open platform where label printer members from different countries meet to discuss and benchmark common management problems and solutions. The idea is to organize two or three small scale meetings per year each focusing on one specific theme. Meetings will be held in accordance with the 'weight watchers' principle: participants should bring in an open mind and be prepared to share ideas and solutions at the meeting with the other participants. And of course FINAT will make sure that the meetings are complemented with the first class networking opportunities that our members are used to.

‘Another big point of interest in 2007 will be the continuing efforts to recycle more liner waste and also in the first quarter of the year we will be producing recommended solutions for dealing with this waste, that will be of great interest to end-users,’ Harrisson said.