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CHALLENGES
FOR
FINAT
The challenges facing FINAT and its members in today’s world of accelerated change are manifold, and the Board identified
the following challenges for FINAT in particular:
•
Positioning of FINAT towards the label printer community in Europe.
There are an estimated total of over 3000 label printer
companies in the ‘wider Europe’. About 10% of them are FINAT member. Of these, another 15% (around 50 companies) participate
in the FINAT Congress. Considering that a majority of the 3000 label printers are small local companies and organised at national
level, what is the profile and size of the relevant target group of FINAT? What is the compelling value proposition of FINAT
towards the main stakeholders of the association: converters, suppliers and associations?
•
Engagement of volunteers.
In today’s pressed social and business environment, time is one of the most limiting factors for
associations, even more so for international, member driven associations like FINAT. Members are more and more behaving like
‘subscribers’ than ‘engaged’ members. The incoming generation of business leaders has a different perception of values and
benefits of association membership. Commercial entities and internet tools and platforms are entering the business domain of
associations. How can FINAT organise itself differently to reaffirm the relevance, attractiveness and effectiveness of its volunteer
work? And in doing so, how can FINAT engage more converter companies to delegate more competent candidates at committee
level than the 15-20 at present?
•
Positioning of the FINAT Congress:
the member survey indicates that alongside time and cost, the business relevance of our
association’s annual leadership summit requires attention. How can FINAT transform the event from a ‘nice to have’ event for
many members into a ‘must have’? What is required to turn our association’s flagship event into ‘The Davos for the Label
Industry’? And how does the organisation differentiate its other events accordingly?
•
Coping with the structural evolution of the label and packaging industry.
Historically the vertical, supply chain oriented
association for the self-adhesive label industry, FINAT will have to have to ‘mirror’ the evolution of the members it represents.
With globalisation of markets, consolidation of industries and technology and product innovations, traditional boundaries
between labelling and packaging sectors are vanishing. With the emergence of digital, ‘old’ business models are being challenged.
Can FINAT redefine its scope by embracing adjacent narrow web technologies without losing focus of its core objectives?
DEFINING
THE
VISION
AND
ROADMAP
In its process towards defining the strategy towards 2017, the Board has meanwhile completed the following steps:
•It has assessed the results of the 2012 member satisfaction survey.
•It has done a self-assessment on the status of the 2x2 strategy 2009 – 2013
•It has reconfirmed the association’s guiding ‘mission’ and motto (‘Linking the Label Community’).
•It has redefined its value proposition for the three major stakeholder groups: label converters, suppliers to the label (and narrow
web) industry and, finally national trade associations in Europe.
•It has established new operational house rules to improve the effectiveness of Board and committee meetings and increase the
speed of decision making.
•It is in the process of restructuring the Board by enlarging the Executive Board as the core decision-making body, and assigning
clear responsibilities and assignments for each of the main Board members.
•It is in the process of setting up a systematic, future oriented approach for the search and screening of potential candidates for
volunteer work in the association.
The next important step is to define the scenarios for the future, FINAT’s own vision towards the end of the decade and the
roadmap that our association should follow to achieve the desired vision. During the summer of 2013, a small task force
involving past, present and future leaders of FINAT will meet for a future planning workshop under the guidance of De
Ruyter Strategy.
Based on this roadmap, tasks, deliverables, assignments and budgets will be allocated, both at Board and committee level.
The Board expects to complete the strategy planning process after Labelexpo Europe 2013.
15
FINAT YEARBOOK
2013
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