Reprographics Industry – POSITIONS SOUGHT and POSITIONS AVAILABLE – a new service from Reprographics 101

Regarding the announcement we made on January 2^nd, this link will take you to the page (on our Google-Docs site) that shows people looking for positions in the Reprographics Industry:

http://tinyurl.com/7d83rbv

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Okay, here's the original post we did on January 2nd to announce this service:

In the survey we are currently conducting “about” Reprographics 101, we ask this question:

“In your opinion, should Reprographics 101 add a section to the blog where reprographics-industry employees, who are not now employed, can let it be known that they are looking for positions in the industry?”

As of today’s date, 25 people have participated in the Survey about Reprographics 101. Their response to the above referenced question:

No, bad idea – 1

Yes, good idea – 20

No response - 2

I was quite surprised at the number of “yes” responses. One of the purposes of our blog is to provide and share information that our blog-visitors feel is important. And, for that reason, and because of the number of “yes” responses we received, we are, today (by this post!) announcing a new service Reprographics 101 will be providing to job seekers …. and to prospective employers.

Participation in this service is limited to:

a) people who are seeking positions with reprographics companies or with vendors who serve the reprographics industry

b) prospective employers who are in the reprographics business or who are vendors to the reprographics industry

And, here’s how we are going to operate this service:

1) if you are looking for a position in the reprographics industry, with either a reprographer or with a vendor who serves the reprographics industry, submit your information to Reprographics 101, and Reprographics 101 will show your “position sought posting” in an Excel file that will be hosted on our Google-Docs site. (Note that your confidential contact information will not be shown in that file, unless you want us to show that information in the file. If your I.D. is your name, then we will take that to mean that you do want your contact information reflected in the Excel file; see “provide contact information” below for further details about this.) If you do not want your name to appear in the “positions sought” Excel file, then we will take that to mean that you want to remain “anonymous” until such time as you notify us to go ahead and provide your contact information to an employer who has notified us that they are interested in being put in touch with you.

2) if you are an employer looking for people to join your company’s team, submit your information to Reprographics 101, and Reprographics 101 will show your “positions available posting” in an Excel file that will be hosted on our Google-Docs site.

3) Employers who are interested in contacting people who are looking for positions must e-mail an “inquiry” to Reprographics 101, indicating (in the e-mail they send to us) the I.D. of the person they are interested in being put in touch with. Once an inquiry has been received, it will be forwarded to the person the employer is interested in contacting, and it will be up to the prospective employee to decide whether to, or not to, contact the employer. Note: we have decided to handle it this way because some who are seeking positions may not want to be contacted by certain employers.

INFORMATION THAT WILL NEED TO BE SUBMITTED TO REPROGRAPHICS 101 BY PEOPLE WHO ARE SEEKING EMPLOYMENT:

Who are you?

Either use your name or create an I.D. number (or series of letters) that will be used to identify you. While some may be comfortable using their names, others may wish to keep their names private, at least until they are ready to contact a prospective employer.

What type of position (or positions) do you seek?

Create a name for the type of position you seek. Examples: Sales Manager, Controller, Sales Representative, Reprographics Operator, etc.

How long have you been employed in the reprographics industry?

State the collective number of years/months you’ve been employed in the reprographics industry.

Where do you want to work?

Provide the names of the cities and/or states where you would consider being employed.

How much do you expect to be paid?

Not including benefits and perks, provide the “salary range” that you would consider?

Provide “contact information”.

Your contact information will not be shown in the information we publish about you on Reprographics 101 (see exception noted above). The contact information you provide will be used as follows: so that Reprographics 101 can contact you, should we receive an inquiry about you from a prospective employer.

Examples of information to be submitted to Reprographics 101:

I.D.: John Taylor

Position sought: Production / Operations Manager

Reprographics Industry Experience: 8 years

Where I’d like to be employed: Washington, DC area, Baltimore, MD area

Salary range: $40,000 - $50,000

Contact Information (for Reprographics 101 only)

Name:

Phone Number:

E-mail address:

I.D.: 12359

Position sought: Sales Manager or V.P. of Sales

Reprographics Industry Experience: 12 years, 6 months

Where I’d like to be employed: Anywhere in the U.S. except for Hawaii and Alaska

Salary range: $45,000 plus commission (or likewise incentive compensation for performance)

Contact Information (for Reprographics 101 only)

Name:

Phone Number:

E-mail address:

INFORMATION THAT WILL NEED TO BE SUBMITTED TO REPROGRAPHICS 101 BY EMPLOYERS WHO ARE SEEKING PEOPLE TO JOIN THEIR TEAM:

· Company Name

· Names of Positions Available

· City/State where positions are available

· Contact Information:

o Name of person to contact

o Phone number of person to contact

o E-mail address of person to contact

Further terms and conditions of this service:

· Reprographics 101 agrees to keep confidential any and all information that is intended to be kept confidential.

· Reprographics 101 reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to amend the rules of this service.

· Reprographics 101 reserves the right to discontinue this service at any time, without prior notice to anyone.

· Anyone who uses this service, whether a job-seeker or an employer seeking people, agrees that Reprographics 101 (including its author, Joel Salus) shall have zero liability to individuals looking for positions or to companies seeking employees. The mere act of submitting “jobs sought” e-mails to Reprographics 101 or submitting “positions available” e-mails to Reprographics 101 shall be deemed by Reprographics 101 to be consent to, and acceptance of, the zero liability term/condition.

City of Cambridge MA - Reprographics Services Bid - Bid Results

On December 11, 2011, we advised our blog-visitors that the City of Cambridge, MA had released an RFP (bid) for Reprographics Services.

Here are the results of that bid, as per the “bid tabulation” sheet now up on the City’s web-site:

Bid opening date - Thursday, December 22, 2011
File NO 5667: Reprographic Services
Ridgway LLC., DBA ARC Massachusetts
$27,625.45
BFS Business Printing, Inc.
$28,025.00
Andrew T. Johnson
$29,392.50
ABC Imaging
$48,441.50

There are certainly more than just four reprographics companies active in the Greater Boston Market Area, so, after looking at the brief list of companies who submitted bids, I find myself wondering, “where are the others, why did they choose not to submit bids for this procurement?”

Curiously absent:

- Makepeace (one of the country’s oldest reprographics companies)

- Service Point (the second largest reprographics company in the world and their U.S. division is based in the Boston area.)

- NRI (although based in NYC, they acquired and operate the reprographics company formerly owned by Ernie Lorandeau, a long-time Boston-area reprographer).

- AIR Graphics (owned by Mike and Kevin Cully, two very knowledgeable, long-term, Boston-area reprographers.

- Ben Franklin Printers (are they still active in the reprographics business?)

The City’s Bid Tabulation shows only “total bids”. My suggestion to those who want to know the “unit prices” that bidders bid for each and every line item. Contact the City’s Purchasing Department, by letter, to request copies of each bid submitted. If you really want to be aware of pricing in your market, you’ve got to be willing to do the homework!

City of Cambridge MA Bid for Reprographics Services

Reprographics Services – File No. 5687

Bids due on Thursday, December 22^nd, 2011, 10:00 a.m.

Contact Information:

City of Cambridge, Purchasing Department

795 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 303

Cambridge, MA 02139

Purchasing Agent: Cynthia Griffin

Phone 617-349-4310

Fax 617-349-4008

Econ 101 from Repro 101: Report on Predictions Made on May 21, 2011

On May 21^st, 2011, I put up a post on Reprographics 101 titled, “Economics 101 from Reprographics 101.” In that post, I made 10 predictions. Note that all of my predictions were based on the “SWAG” (silly-wild-ass-guess) method. Today, I’m going to revisit those predictions to see how close I came (or to see how far off base my predictions were.)

Black type > the predictions I made on May 21^st, 2011.

Red type > today’s update on those predictions.

1. On December 31, 2011, the S&P 500 will be between in the 1,150 to 1,200 range. (Today, it’s right around 1,334.)

Update: at market close on December 31^st, 2011, the S&P 500 Index was 1,218.

2. On December 31, 2011, the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage will be 5.50% (zero points.) (Today, Bankrate.com reports that the current average interest rate is 4.77% (zero points, 20% down)

Update: On December 31, 2011, the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 3.95%.

3. On December 31, 2011, the yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond will be 4.85%. (Today, Google Finance reports that the current yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond is 4.31%.)

Update: at market close on December 31^st, 2011, the yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury Bond was 2.89%.

4. On December 31, the Euro/USD exchange rate will be 1.31. (Today, Google Finance reports the Euro/USD exchange rate at 1.415.)

Update: at market close on December 31^st, 2011, the Euro/USD exchange rate was at 1.2942.

5. For the full-year 2011, ARC’s “U.S.” Sales will come in at right around $384 mil. (In an article on this blog on March 10, 2011, we included a table that showed ARC’s “U.S.” Sales at $676.7 mil for 2008, at $473.4 mil for 2009, and at $404.5 mil for 2010.) Please note that these numbers exclude ARC’s sales in countries outside the U.S. And, please note that my prediction for ARC’s “U.S.” Sales are based on “organic” sales; and I point that out because ARC may decide to acquire a few companies during the 2011 year, and there’s no way for me to guess at what “acquired” sales ARC may end up adding to its U.S. Sales.

Update: We won’t be able to provide an update on this prediction until ARC files its 10K report for 2011, which won’t happen until around mid February (or mid March) 2012, and that’s because ARC does not disclose its “U.S.-only” sales until the 10K report is published.

6. ARC’s stock price will be $8.20 on December 31, 2011. (Note: On May 20, 2011, at market-close, ARC’s stock price was $8.76 per share.)

Update: at close of market on December 31, 2011, ARC’s stock was trading at $4.59 per share.

7. The AIA ABI Index – for May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December (2011), will be above 50 in four of those months and equal to or below 50 in four of those months. (Up down, up down.)

Update: As to May 2011 through December 2011, right now we still have one month to go because the December 2011 index won’t be reported until the middle of January 2012. However, so far, the ABI Index was at or above 50 for only 2 of the last 7 months and below 50 for 5 of those months.

8. The NAHM Home Builder’s sentiment index will be 20 in the month of November 2011. (The index was 16.0 in May 2011)

Update: the Home Builder’s sentiment index in November was at 20.0. The index reading in December was at 21.0

9. The U.S. GDP number for year 2011 will come in at +2.4% (for the full year 2011).

Update: Sorry, we will not be able to update you on this prediction until the government issues this number (the annual growth rate number), which will likely be a month or two from now. For now, we can report that the GDP growth rate was .4%, 1.3% and 1.8%, respectively, for Quarters 1, 2 and 3 in 2011.

10.The officially reported U.S. Unemployment number reported in December 2011 will be 8.8%. (The unemployment rate reported for April 2011 was 9.0%)

Update: The officially reported U.S. Unemployment rate reported on December 4^th for November was 8.6%. We won’t know the official growth rate for December 2011 until sometime in mid-January 2012.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Joel’s comments:

Well, based on the “actuals”, so far, readers can now see clear evidence of why I barely passed Econ 101 in college!

My SWAG at the S&P 500 Index wasn’t far off, and, inasmuch as did over 200 short-term trades in 2011 and relied on my projection that the S&P 500 would move lower from the 1,334 number it was at when I prepared my list of predictions, I did fine, but that’s only because the market swung up and down, lots, during 2011 and I managed to catch most of the ups and avoid most of the downs. My disaster of the year was Bank of New York Mellon. Although analysts “say” that that stock has a fair value of around $50 per share, that stock plunged during the latter part of 2011 and, like the idiot stock trader I am, I held onto it ….. waiting, waiting, waiting. However, in spite of that, I managed to eke out a “total return” of approximately 14% for 2011. (Dividends plus gains, minus losses.)

As to interest rates, well, I was waaaaay off the mark on my predictions of the 30-year fixed mortgage rate and the 30 year U.S Treasury Bond yield. That’s mostly because the Fed Reserve continued – and even strengthened – its policies to keep down, if not further lower, interest rates. [I hope some of you refinanced this year, the rates are ridiculously low. And, I hope some of you bought long (10 and 30) year Treasury bonds early in 2011, because Treasury bonds were evidently the big winner (in terms of total return) for the year 2011.]

My prediction of the Euro/USD exchange rate was very close! Unfortunately, I was in France and Spain in September and the Euro/USD exchange rate was much higher then than it ended up being at the end of 2011. I have to learn how to better time our trips to Europe.

I was well off the mark on my prediction of ARC’s stock price! Not much I can say about that. I think Stadium Capital – the investment company that acquired a huge chunk of ARC stock during 2011 – must have acted on my prediction. Sorry about that.

As to my prediction about the AIA ABI Index, even though that story ain’t yet over, my prediction isn’t going to make it. I really was expecting to see at least four 50+ months out of the last eight months of 2011. If December’s index reading comes in plus 50, that’ll make 3 50+ months out of the last eight months of 2011. In spite of that, I still believe that we are going to see a rise in A/E/C Industry activity during 2012. After all, how long can conditions continue to be awful? There has to be a good amount of pent up demand.

I did “nail” the Home Builder’s sentiment index, right on. But, even at 20 and 21, respectively, for November and December, that index is still way below 50. That’s not exactly an expression of robust positivity about the near-term outlook for home building.

Like almost every economist, my prediction of the U.S. GDP growth rate for 2011 will be well off the mark. Early in 2011, the majority of economists were predicting that the GDP growth rate for year 2011 would come in around 3.0%. Inasmuch as it now looks like that rate will come in somewhat lower than 2.0% (and, to hit that, it relies on a fairly strong Q4, which, some say, did not happen) what does that say for the “expert” economist community?

My prediction of the U.S. Unemployment rate wasn’t far off. But, considering the fact that the real unemployment rate is probably a good bit higher than the rate reported by the government - (people have dropped out of the employment market because their unemployment ran out and they still can’t find a job, so some have stopped looking for work) – who really cares what the “official” unemployment rate really is? Let’s get Americans back to work with an infrastructure / development, jobs creation program!

Okay, that’s it for my comments about the predictions I made on May 21, 2011.