Hogan, who will officially start his new job on 1 November, described the global sales role as “my ideal job” and added that he would be responsible for “pulling together channel management, product management and product development under one roof and trying to give it more external focus”. “The danger with large organisations is that there’s a danger that you can become too internally-focused maybe and not as nimble as you need to be in the marketplace. So my role is really to ensure that there is an absolute external focus on actively offering products that can demonstrate an ROI,” he added. “Particularly in western Europe and a lot of the developed world, we are into a very mature, consolidating marketplace [and] waiting for replacement business because a piece of kit has worn out is not really a way to maintain or grow market share. “We need to be offering products that can give higher productivity or a value-added feature or a product line extension; we’ve got to be putting things out there that are going to put something on our customers’ bottom line.” Hogan said that he hoped to spend no more than 50% of his time at Heidelberg’s HQ and the rest on the road, conducting face-to-face meetings with customers and sales units. “My role in the UK meant I was in daily contact with customers. In my new role there will be many additional pressures and I know I will have to work to keep in touch with the market and reality on the ground so that we continue to focus on the customer’s real, not assumed, needs.” Heidelberg UK managing director Gerard Heanue said: “This is an excellent opportunity for Mark. His product knowledge combined with his marketing and sales prowess will be put to very good use. We are sad to lose Mark from our own management team but we are delighted he is staying within the group and that he has been promoted to this fantastic role.” PrintWeek understands that Heanue will take on the marketing elements of Hogan’s former role, while Heidelberg UK sales director Jim Todd will drive the product management team in addition to the sales team. Heidelberg UK product manager for post press, Ian Trengrouse, will be responsible for the finishing portfolio. Hogan started in post press in 1988, when he joined Harris Graphics in Slough, a company which was bough by Heidelberg in 1996. He then went to France as sales director for the Sheridan high-volume bindery equipment that was sold by Heidelberg, before joining Heidelberg UK in May of 2002 as business executive, post press. He was promoted to marketing manager and later marketing director for Heidelberg...

Hogan, who will officially start his new job on 1 November, described the global sales role as “my ideal job” and added that he would be responsible for “pulling together channel management, product management and product development under one roof and trying to give it more external focus”. “The danger with large organisations is that there’s a danger that you can become too internally-focused maybe and not as nimble as you need to be in the marketplace. So my role is really to ensure that there is an absolute external focus on actively offering products that can demonstrate an ROI,” he added. “Particularly in western Europe and a lot of the developed world, we are into a very mature, consolidating marketplace [and] waiting for replacement business because a piece of kit has worn out is not really a way to maintain or grow market share. “We need to be offering products that can give higher productivity or a value-added feature or a product line extension; we’ve got to be putting things out there that are going to put something on our customers’ bottom line.” Hogan said that he hoped to spend no more than 50% of his time at Heidelberg’s HQ and the rest on the road, conducting face-to-face meetings with customers and sales units. “My role in the UK meant I was in daily contact with customers. In my new role there will be many additional pressures and I know I will have to work to keep in touch with the market and reality on the ground so that we continue to focus on the customer’s real, not assumed, needs.” Heidelberg UK managing director Gerard Heanue said: “This is an excellent opportunity for Mark. His product knowledge combined with his marketing and sales prowess will be put to very good use. We are sad to lose Mark from our own management team but we are delighted he is staying within the group and that he has been promoted to this fantastic role.” PrintWeek understands that Heanue will take on the marketing elements of Hogan’s former role, while Heidelberg UK sales director Jim Todd will drive the product management team in addition to the sales team. Heidelberg UK product manager for post press, Ian Trengrouse, will be responsible for the finishing portfolio. Hogan started in post press in 1988, when he joined Harris Graphics in Slough, a company which was bough by Heidelberg in 1996. He then went to France as sales director for the Sheridan high-volume bindery equipment that was sold by Heidelberg, before joining Heidelberg UK in May of 2002 as business executive, post press. He was promoted to marketing manager and later marketing director for Heidelberg...

The Bungay-based book printer produced what has been described as a ‘small number’ of early copies of the new Bridget Jones book, Mad About the Boy, containing a 40pp section of Sir David Jason’s autobiography, My Life. Both books were published yesterday, the book trade’s ‘Super Thursday’ when major titles that are expected to be Christmas bestsellers are released. PrintWeek understands that despite St Ives’ use of technology such as Muller Martini’s ASIR system for automatic signature recognition, human error resulted in the mix-up, which affected a small number of copies in the first production run. The two books are the same format, with the same pagination and imposition, on the same paper, and coincidentally neither has differentiating page headers. Clays managing director Kate McFarlan said: “Obviously we are very sorry that it happened and we have apologised to Random House. Whether it’s 20 copies or 200,000 copies a mistake is a mistake. We are very embarrassed.” Sophie Mitchell, publicity manager at Random House imprint Vintage, described the printer as “having a Bridget Jones moment” which resulted in widespread coverage for the story on national media channels. It was yesterday’s most-read news story on the BBC website. Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding saw the funny side, and told ITV News that “nothing turns out quite perfectly”. The incident has resulted in massive additional publicity for both titles. Mad About the Boy is currently number one in Amazon’s bestseller list, with David Jason’s My Life at number 10....

The Bungay-based book printer produced what has been described as a ‘small number’ of early copies of the new Bridget Jones book, Mad About the Boy, containing a 40pp section of Sir David Jason’s autobiography, My Life. Both books were published yesterday, the book trade’s ‘Super Thursday’ when major titles that are expected to be Christmas bestsellers are released. PrintWeek understands that despite St Ives’ use of technology such as Muller Martini’s ASIR system for automatic signature recognition, human error resulted in the mix-up, which affected a small number of copies in the first production run. The two books are the same format, with the same pagination and imposition, on the same paper, and coincidentally neither has differentiating page headers. Clays managing director Kate McFarlan said: “Obviously we are very sorry that it happened and we have apologised to Random House. Whether it’s 20 copies or 200,000 copies a mistake is a mistake. We are very embarrassed.” Sophie Mitchell, publicity manager at Random House imprint Vintage, described the printer as “having a Bridget Jones moment” which resulted in widespread coverage for the story on national media channels. It was yesterday’s most-read news story on the BBC website. Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding saw the funny side, and told ITV News that “nothing turns out quite perfectly”. The incident has resulted in massive additional publicity for both titles. Mad About the Boy is currently number one in Amazon’s bestseller list, with David Jason’s My Life at number 10....

Close Brothers banking division grew its loan book by 13% to £4.6bn over the 12 months. Between 2009 and 2012 Close Brothers increased its lending to SMEs by 20% year-on-year as it took advantage of high street banks pulling out of the SME market. Chief executive Preben Prebensen said in his joint statement with chairman Strone Macpherson: “It is clear that trust in the financial services sector and consumer confidence continue to be low. Despite this, we have successfully continued to build our business through the cycle, supporting SMEs as their businesses grow.” Close Brothers Commercial loan book grow 13% to £1.8bn on the back of a 12% increase in asset finance loans to £1.5bn and an 18% hike in the invoice finance loan book, from £308.7m to £363.4m. Prebensen said: “There is widespread recognition of the role SMEs will play in the economic recovery, but they remain under-served by the banking sector. “We currently lend to over 23,000 SMEs in our commercial businesses and we believe that our cautious, high-quality credit underwriting and service-led approach together with our reputation as a trusted, reliable lender place us in a strong position for further growth in this market.”...