Discussion

By Patrick Henry on Sep 17, 2009

This is sad news indeed. I knew TanaSeybert and its predecessor companies well, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to call TanaSeybert the cornerstone of what's left of the printing industry in the NYC-metro area. (It certainly is the premier printing establishment in Manhattan.) Let's earnestly hope for the appearance of some "interested parties" who can do what needs to be done to keep its proud and reputable name alive. If TanaSeybert vanishes, a big and irreplaceable piece of New York's stature as a printing center will vanish along with it.

By Steve Smith on Sep 18, 2009

Its a real shame that a company that large takes a fall like this. I believe when companies attempt to just grow and expand strickly by aquisition. These things get too large too fast and in this economy companies that large can't handle the downturn without down sizing quickly. One thing I can say, one less union shop!!!

By Bob Rosen on Sep 18, 2009

TanaSeybert did NOT fail because of size. It failed for other reasons.

First, it had the obvious cost burden of operating in New York City (though that wasn't a new problem). Its two component businesses were traditional printers burdened with an expensive installed base, even after they consolidated operations. They were stuck with feeding an enormous herd of elephants and failed in their search for greener pastures.

Beyond the problem of highly fixed costs, I believe the real clincher lay somewhere else – deep in their history.

Here’s why: Tana had built a reputation for color expertise and high quality printing, and they were relying on those old virtues when the world had moved on. They may or may not have maintained their quality, but that hardly mattered, because the market they were serving no longer was willing or able to favor a printer because of perceived differences in quality.

Years ago, superior quality may have been a reason for success, but it’s no longer a meaningful differentiator. Even the highest-class clients take quality as a given, and need other reasons to do business. Yet all too many printers fool themselves by believing that their reputation for quality will tilt sales in their favor. They fall short in providing new reasons for clients to do business with them. They may also fall short in managing costs, believing they need a too-expensive infrastructure to maintain their competitive position.

Was the failure due to a lack of urgency or a shortage of new ideas? Only insiders can know the cause of TanaSeybert’s demise – and maybe even the insiders don’t understand the real cause. But take a look at the list of failed larger printers, and you’ll be struck by how many were once known for their premier quality.

By Tim Grey on Sep 18, 2009

One only has to look at the September issue of Printing Impressions to see that shops like this in NYC and other mega-metros are losing out those placed in rural and suburban areas. Take Hennegan for example which is in Kentucky outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Take a minute to look at the customers they won the awards with. Kentucky labor is cheap, cheap, cheap mainly because the cost of living is incredibly low. Cincinatti is also only a 1 day drive from 2/3 of the population of the United States. This makes delivery easy and quick. Take into further consideration this regions proximity to UPS's Louisville Worldhub and FedEx's Memphis central facility and you can expedite shipping and logistics even further. The lower midwest and upper south are a new opportunity. Become efficient, effective and keep costs low or die is the new mantra.

By David Arnold on Sep 18, 2009

As a long time previous employee of Tana, I feel for all my friends who were still there. The Owner, David Jurist is one of the finest men I have ever known.

D. Arnold

By Michael J on Sep 19, 2009

I think Bob is on the right track. It's important to not derive the easy lessons from Tana's decision to go into bankruptcy.

1. It has nothing to do with the "End of Print." Sandy Alexander seems to be doing just fine. Transcontinental has just opened the most sophisticated newspaper printing facility that I know about in the States and Murdoch did the same in the UK.

2. It has little to do with the "cost of labor" or the Union. That was the GM explanation. No doubt the union made it more difficult for management, but it's always more difficult for management when they have to share power running their companies.

In my opinion the problem was an inability to make the adjustment that Bob describes. For many years we've been told that Print is not a commodity. Denying the inevitable makes it much harder to succeed.

The irony was that Seybert was arguably the best trade shop in NY for many years. They treated print as a commodity, produced it very efficiently an, I assume did quite well.

If you look at some of the winners, many of them have embraced the fact that print is a commodity. Back sometime in 2006, I quoted a leader at Sandy Alexander saying something like Sandy had was becoming the designers output machine. Mimeo and Vista both built their growing businesses on producing commodities.

All the talk about moving to being a "Market Service Provider" was taken in the easy way. Now it's about "social media."

It ignores the fact that the service that our addressable market needs most is the ability to buy print with the maximum ease and the minimum risk.

Since there are so many experienced good people at Tana, my bet is that they will reorganize the same way GM will reorganize. Focus on what you do best and ignore the rest.

By Steve Smith on Sep 21, 2009

Since you mentioned "Sandy", I believe they currently have a "UNION" issue of their own. Don't the unions understand there is no additional money to just keep giving and giving. We are all living in a different world these days. We all need to understand that in order to survive in this matket we all need to make less than we were 5 to 10 years ago. Including all the unions that have contracts that can't possible be fulfilled in these trying times. Better to have a job paying less than no job at all. Ask the boys who will be loosing there jobs at Tana!!!

By MichaelJ on Sep 21, 2009

Steve,
Do you know if the Union issue is about more money? I have no information but my bet is that it's more about flexible work rules, respect and health care.

Given that it's pretty likely that the "health care" problem is going to be better by the end of the year, that takes a pretty difficult question off the table.

The UAW has demonstrated in the case of GM they understand the importance of flexible work rules and everyone taking a haircut. Meanwhile, in my opinion, the real problem at GM was a Board of Directors that didn't get it. Given that they have now been fired, I would expect that GM will do just fine going forward.

Union members know better than anyone about the "economy." An often under appreciated reality is that many "bankruptcies" are undertaken specifically to get rid of the union and get out of pension obligations, not to mention trade payables.

To be very clear, I am not implying that is the case with Tana. In fact from what I know about their culture, I would be surprised if it were.

Again without any knowledge, I would not be at all surprised if that figured into Cenveo's decision to close Anderson.


Note, nothing about the situation has anything important to do with "The End of Print."

By Steve Smith on Sep 21, 2009

All I'm saying is that even in a good (not great) economy the unions just fail to realize that cost of business continues to go up every year, as cost of living does as well. We as business owners understand this better than anyone. For an outside service (union) to come and tell us we have to give all our employees a % raise just because I signed a contract 5 years ago doesn't make it do-able. Do they know how much money I made/lost that year? Do they know I have a balloon payment due on a press that has been running and paying there salary every year for the last 10 years? Do they know I've been saving money every year for a move because my lease is ending? NO, NO NO!!! Things change every year good and bad. It's still the employers job to keep his /her own company running. The government created labor laws to protect the employees, why do people think they need to gang up against the employer to get anything. GM is a prime example since you did bring up GM.

By George V on Sep 21, 2009

GM and Tana are/were both big companies with unions in their line of business, all comparing stops there.
When GM and the other big 3 shook out over the last 8 years, 25 print shops in Detroit dropped off the end of the earth. And that's just print shops.
It isn't because its the end of the automobile. More like a perfect storm.
Bad Management.
Bad Unions.
Bad Banking(Wall Street Credit)
Bad Product.(or good product, seeing cars now get much further down the road before dying)
Bad Government(5 years ago the Gov. said we'd be blown away in 5 years, she was right).

I'm sure Tana had great people, just in the wrong place in bad times.
By the way GM is a long way from getting out of the woods and/or "doing fine".

By MichaelJ on Sep 21, 2009

Not to get into a long back and forth here. But I'm guessing you see the GM problem as one of constricting labor agreements as opposed to bad management decisions.

If that's pretty, it's probably best for us to just agree to disagree on this one in this comment stream

By John on Sep 21, 2009

Thank you to all who eschew "print is dead" as the sole reason for any company to fall on it's sword ala Tana. Print is changing and for sure it will leave a few more casualties in it's wake, but print is not dead.
I'm a small player- but my business is up this year as are my profits. Am I that smart? No, but I decided to not chase equipment as the salvation and instead focused on service delivery being "best in class". The larger companies can do the same, but as they hang onto to old notions and a belief that the halcyon days of old are coming back, they too are susceptible to the fate of Tana and many others.
My heart goes out to those deeply affected because they were unwitting pawns to this debacle.

By Brian on Sep 25, 2009

Print is not dead, but - and I can sympathize - its not as wild and carefree as it was 20 years ago. The ones who are surviving are the ones who are the most nimble - feeding that big iron at that level becomes an grinding obsession that C-level executives (in businesses of all sizes) get caught up in and fail to run their business by not effectively planning, forecasting, marketing, measuring, and scaling appropriately to protect and grow what you can, and having the cohones to admit what you cannot. As owners and managers in this industry, we can't individually change the market. Markets change. That's what they do. To blame them for changing - its like blaming a scorpion for stinging. That's its nature. All we can change, as the age old wisdom goes, is how we react to it.

Will GM learn the lesson? They're being forced to scale back to a more appropriate size with the divestiture of some pieces to run an effective business (But, listen to them cry over selling Opel in Europe - they're only doing so with extreme reluctance). Hats off to Citigroup for now taking action. Saving what you can sure beats losing it all - and drowning so many others in the wake...

By christopher S on Oct 09, 2009

Since I worked for Seybert Nicholas since Febl7 1997, as Office Manger with many many hats, I was around for the fall of Tana Graphic after 9/11, the merger seemed somewhat a good business choice, based on the fact that Tana Graphics had an elite sales force involved in many areas of print and not limited to the trade business. However when after the merger I realized that this was a huge allocation, but with the help of the NYC and the funding (grant) of almost $ 9 million dollars to keep the business in NYC to save jobs. and a guarantee of adding at least 85 new jobs, which never happened to say the least. The new management style left a lot to be desired. The pricing was not at all competive due to the huge overhead of the new facility on W. 52 street. It was a poor business choice but Seybert Nicholas had now other choice at that time..... After spending 11 yrs of my life in the hopes that the company would be successful it is a sad commetary how poor business choices affect the lives of loyal employees and their families........

By Ken on Oct 15, 2009

While I too am a former employee of Tanaseybert I sympathize for those that will be left out in the cold on Friday Oct. 16. When I was laid off on Feb 2, 2009, I saw the writing on the wall much earlier then that date. The fact of the matter is, like a lot of other large companies that buy out smaller companies, they agree to take in the management personnel of the small fish. So it is my opinion that there were more chiefs with high salaries then there were injuns. TS always prided itself in having the latest and greatest technology even when it wasn't totally necessary. In my opinion, overtime was over looked in certain departments by the department heads because they didn't want to disrupt the apple cart. After working in the newspaper industry for over ten years, with the Post and the Times, and working in commercial for over 20 years, I can honestly say that the print industry is the lowest I have ever seen it. Even before I was laid off on Feb. 2, there were over 35 lay-offs prior to mine ( and those that were still employed there have been on 3-4 day work weeks since February) that were because of the shrinking market for print. Printing is directly affected by advertising and if you ask anyone in advertising they will tell you how their numbers have decreased significantly over the past 2 years due to the shrinking economy.
I am saddened by the chain of events that led to the demise of TS but it was just a matter of time. Blatant abuse of overtime and over spending and over extending will do it every time.
Good luck and Godspeed to my former fellow employees