When the Covid pandemic hit in early 2020, many businesses paused or retired their ‘2020 Vision’ style strategies for growth and moved into survival mode.

And with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation, interest rate hikes, the spiralling cost-of-living and supply chain challenges all swiftly following soon after, many companies have found it hard in the years since the pandemic began to look beyond simply keeping their organisations afloat. But, for many of those businesses that have been stuck in a holding pattern, things are now starting to change. With unprecedented challenges now seemingly part of day-to-day life, companies are starting to adapt and are making more time to plan for growth.

This is perhaps easier said than done, although the BPIF’s Printing Outlook survey for Q2 2023 found that in the tough trading period, 30% of respondents did nevertheless manage to increase their output levels.

Having a distinct USP can certainly help aid business growth and a recent Printweek poll that asked, ‘What is your company’s biggest USP?’ found that 48% of respondents believe their team and/or customer service is what makes them stand out, 19% said their technology and capabilities, 13% said their reliability, 12% said their quality, and 8% said that pricing was their USP.

Fujifilm Europe digital press and print manager Mark Stephenson believes that printers should predominantly be looking at what their capabilities can achieve for their customers.

“Everyone in the print industry now has been disciplined into saying that quality, price and service are not differentiators for various reasons,” he says.

“Everyone says they can print quality; when people are battling on price nobody wins – including the customer; and you can say that your service is better than anybody else but how does your customer know that unless they’re a repeat customer coming back for more?

“I think people should look at their capabilities, so they are able to say ‘I make something different, I deliver something different, or I deliver value to a customer’s business that is a bigger return, a better performance, or something that enhances their business’.”

While routes to growth like kit investment, marketing, attending networking events, staff training and development, and even making relevant acquisitions are well covered, there are several other lesser trodden growth paths that could benefit many businesses.

One of these is beating the market to invest first in a new technology or offer a new service to potentially gain a first-mover advantage.

While the pandemic halted the short-term kit investment plans for many businesses, a different kind of first-mover advantage emerged – companies that quickly diversified into offering new services and items required, like PPE, Covid-related floor graphics and stickers, and protective screens – were able to recoup some of the earnings they lost elsewhere.

At the IPIA’s recent Autumn Conference, which was looking at business growth opportunities as a theme, Printweek asked the question ‘How important is the first-mover advantage to business growth?’ to panellists during an interactive discussion called ‘Business Growth: By luck or by design?’.

Adam Short, managing director at digital printer The Imaging Centre, responded first. Last year, the greetings cards specialist had bought the UK’s first Duplo DC-20K B2 cutting system, after hosting the machine’s beta test.

“For us, it’s essential to be first. We pride ourselves as the market leaders in our industry and we have been for quite some time,” he answered.

“When we’re looking at the plan for our business going forward, we’re always working ahead of ourselves on one-, three-, five-year plans to make sure that we are still that go to point for our industry.”

Jamie Nelson, director of Compass Business Finance, also answered the question.

“If you can be the first mover and you do it right, that’s the place to be, 100%, but it’s about doing it right, being sure about when it’s right and if it’s the right software/product/machine to be the first mover on, for you as a business.

“But how do you assess that? It’s about understanding your customers’ value requirements and the value proposition that you’ve got. If you can marry those two up, it’s a marketing strategy that will reduce any risk.

“There’s always a potential risk if you’re a first mover in anything that it might not work, but it’s about how you can reduce that risk by using your expertise and understanding that you’ve got the people to deliver it, and that it marries up with your customer value requirements – that’s when being the first mover can be really beneficial.”

Whatever the potential routes to growth that a business chooses, Fujifilm Europe’s Stephenson warns that there is no “cookie cutter” one-size-fits-all approach.

“There’s no way you can say that what works for one company will work for another because it’s about culture and, more than anything – having spoken to lots of businesses that have both succeeded and failed – it’s about leadership. If a company’s leadership is strong and it knows and understands their people and their marketplace, they will lead them in the right way.”

Strong leadership was instrumental to the recent growth of companies overseen by many of the IPIA conference’s speakers.

At the event, Lance Hill, managing director of Eight Days a Week Print Solutions (EDWPS), recalled: “When I joined in 2019, I could see a huge opportunity in […] a business that nobody really knew about but I could see this fantastic foundation – a cash rich business, financially solid, and great people – that could really be taken on to the next level. And that’s exactly what we did.

“I couldn’t do what we do here without having the right people – for me it’s about surrounding yourself with the right people.”

Hill’s session emphasised the importance on business growth of both making strategic hires, and seeing – or in his case predicting – a gap in the market and filling it.

He detailed the company’s launch last year of Eight Plus, a new division created after it took on two senior sales leaders who formerly worked at YM Group, including now sales director at Eight Plus, Rob Moules.

“The web offset sector in the print market has been going through turmoil for the last 10 years-plus, there has been consolidation and shrinking as newsstand volumes have come down,” Hill said.

Hill used to work for The Lettershop Group, formerly part of YM Group but now part of Paragon, which acquired it in a solvent sale just prior to YM Group’s administration last year.

“I kept in touch with Rob Moules. [YM Group] won the Daily Mail contract and the business couldn’t manage it. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen from the outside, probably going back to 2021 – it was not going to last, it was financially in massive trouble, had huge debt which they couldn’t service, and the customer service was poor.”

Moules subsequently expressed to Hill his desire to leave YM Group, and Hill suggested they come together to work on a “plan B” to service clients the pair felt would inevitably be affected by the unfolding situation at YM Group at the time.

They promised customers “a solution that was competitive”, EDWPS’ service, and a “value-add approach”.

“We created a team which I think was the best in class and went from zero to £5.8m sales in the first 10 months to the end of last year – way above our expectations, in the budget we put £2.5m.”

EDWPS has supported its growth by entering industry awards schemes to raise its profile further – in 2022 it won SME of the Year and Customer Service Team of the Year – SME at the Printweek Awards.

Printers – particularly larger web-to-print operations – can also support their growth by gathering feedback via customer surveys and actively responding to online reviews – not only interacting with and thanking customers giving positive reviews, but also taking on board and striving to learn from critiques to help increase their average ratings online.

During his session at the IPIA conference, Tradeprint sales and customer success director and sustainability lead Anthony Rowell said that building service around feedback from surveys and having focus groups “are so important to us”.

“I’m so passionate about providing the right service for customers that I personally respond to every Trustpilot review I get.

“We’re making progress and I like the feedback – I know it’s an old adage that feedback is a gift, but it really is, and in a public forum like Trustpilot, you have to try and make sure that you turn it into a positive experience for the customer.

“We’re doing pretty well in terms of that and we’re catching up our competitors – and we very much admire our competitors; we think that they drive us on harder, and make us better than we would be if we were working in isolation I believe.”

Rowell also spoke about the importance of sustainability. While there are likely few printers left that have not already started on their sustainability journey – it has become an increasingly essential customer requirement – the level to which companies go to enhance their sustainability credentials or the environmental certifications that they hold or are working towards can still give them a USP in this area.

“Measure your waste and understand what your environmental footprint is, because there’s an opportunity to make money out of this,” Rowell said.

“When you invest, make sure that it’s high on the agenda what the energy requirements are for that particular bit of kit, not only because you want to save a bit of cash but it’s the right thing to do to try and mitigate your carbon footprint. Most importantly, try and banish greenwash – don’t exaggerate what you’re doing, be honest with yourselves and be transparent.”

While some of the growth initiatives detailed above can take a lot of time and planning to implement, the long-term payoff can often be worth it.

As a starting point though, if you believe that your company’s quality, service and performance are already up there with the very best in the industry then make sure you enter the Printweek Awards.

While a great night out with deserving colleagues, contacts, and prospects in March is a given, shortlisted companies will also have the chance to not only take a coveted Printweek Prism back to the office, but the right to tell the world they are among the cream of the crop of print, which can only increase their growth prospects.

OPINION

There is growth out there for those prepared to look

Brendan Perring, general manager, IPIA

There is no getting away from the fact that, while the industry is back to decent levels of demand, businesses are struggling against tough conditions, whether that’s Covid debt, to a sluggish return to growth, having to make cuts to staff, electricity usage, increasing paper costs and the rest of it.

There are a lot of businesses out there that have a good team and solid products, and are still solvent and doing okay, but they don’t know where to go next and they want to grow.

We genuinely believe that demand is coming back in the print industry. It will take hard work and, for some, diversification into new markets, but for those who are prepared to look over the parapet – not just hole up in the trenches of their business – there is growth out there to be had.

Make your team an integral part of that process – they all have different skills, and they may have ideas about how to improve your processes. Maybe they’re in production or might have a job on a specific machine, but bring all of your team in and have open meetings, maybe even once a week, and ask them ‘what changes would you make?’ Pull your staff and their experience and knowledge into the business growth and ask for their help – know that you don’t have all of the answers and draw on your team to solve some problems.

It’s also about looking at your regional and local area, seeing where businesses are doing well, looking at where diversification is happening, and making a conscious choice to talk to your suppliers and ask them how their other customers are doing and where they are finding growth, and what they can do to help you grow.

Finally, remember that your product is not ink on paper – do not sell the ink on paper, sell what it does for your customer.

READER REACTION

What is your take on business growth?

Dominic Hartley, commercial director, Lexon Group

“Printers are doing what they always do, which is persevering and knocking on doors. Chasing new work is necessary but the big thing is investment in the kit, to offer a one-stop solution. That’s the be-all and end-all for me, for both economic and environmental reasons. We have a campaign where there might be seven or eight different printed items, all going into one pack. Our customers tend to like to use one printer to do all of them, to keep control of it, keep costs down. We’ve diversified: it’s about upselling and reselling, and the business develops and grows because your existing customers spend more with you.”

Zoe Deadman, managing director, KCS Print

“Growth is an interesting concept. Instead of growth we have focused on sustainability. Sustainability in terms of process, materials, and planet but also sustainability for our business. We are focused on making medium term decisions when buying machinery and infrastructure investment within our restricted budget. The aim is to set ourselves up for future prosperity and security whilst allowing us to pivot towards serving customers in markets with longevity. In our case this has meant moving towards label production for our regional customers.”

Rob Cross, director, Micropress

“The key thing that we focus on is to get the basics right. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel: price, quality, service, turnaround, and offering a sustainable solution. It sounds like a cliché, but if you get the basics right, it really does make a difference. In achieving those things, we’re offering what the client wants. It’s easier said than done, especially getting the price right and being able to achieve margin. Investing heavily has allowed us to offer good prices, quality, and service, because we have the kit to achieve it.”