Orphans Publishing hopes its book – a visual exploration of the rise and rise of the world’s most famous pop band – will transport the fledgling business not back but forth into ventures as successful as this one. A recent splash at the Beatles Story museum in Albert Dock marked its launch.
Orphans Publishing was started last year to extend the capabilities of a company that made its name in print, Orphans Press. Expanding into a new market can grow a business rapidly, but it can also be both risky and emotionally draining.
The challenge
Orphans Publishing is the latest successful venture by Orphans Press to broaden its horizons beyond print. Three years ago the litho, digital and large-format printer branched into web-based app development. But as far back as 2000 it was extending its reach into new markets; first design services, then website creation and all things new media. The print firm, however, is still defined by roots that run deep.
In 1873 Henry Stanley Newman introduced a printing press to his Quakers’ orphanage in Herefordshire to teach his youngsters a trade as well as generate income. For several decades Orphans Press kept the children busy until printing was deemed too dangerous for young people and the business went into private hands.
Current owners, wife and husband Helen and Andy Bowden, bought the then black-and-white-only printing company 19 years ago from Helen’s aunt who ran the business for 30 years. Even then, the new joint-director owners saw problems ahead if the 15 staff they took on continued to focus solely on print.
“The company was in a precarious position,” recalls Andy Bowden. “It had neither colour capability nor design facilities. Meanwhile, the internet was starting make a big mark on the sector. We did however have very loyal customers for which we produced periodicals and newsletters.”
Helen Bowden insists the legacy of Orphans’ heritage is that print remains a “cornerstone” of the business. But it also gave the company an established base to look to the future and broaden its services. The “twin rationale” for transforming the business from print only to design-print-web was both professional and personal, she says.
“To provide only printing has been a strategy that has sadly hastened the demise of many printers where today online channels have created many options. But on a personal level, we are both marketeers by training and inclination. So for us, the chance to offer a fuller service to customers, coordinating communications from printing and marketing to online work such as websites and email, was a challenge we wanted to undertake when we took over the business in 1997.”
The method
The move into web creation was a path trod by many printers in the late 1990s and early noughties to try and capitalise on the growing opportunities throw up by the internet. But whereas other printers’ web presence was simpler, lower key and sometimes haphazard, Orphans Press “quickly got drawn into more complex” work for high-end creative clients, which have become a key target audience. The company is anything but a ‘jobbing printer’, more a creative agency, insists Helen.
Expanding into a new market requires feet on the ground, and the Bowdens had to figure out whose feet would hit the deck to venture ahead. Like website creation, where the company headhunted key experts and now has five web developers, when it came to branching into business and consumer app creation, the Bowdens went for the established pros again.
“The app service came about because our web work was becoming more technical and we were starting to embark on software development. One of our clients asked us to create an app with room-by-room information on a tourist destination, and that’s what we did. We also recently created an app on the heritage and history of Herefordshire cider production.”
Book publishing, however, was both a passion and a highly risky undertaking. Orphans Publishing launched last year with a debut non-fiction publication on one of the Quakers’ finest, 19th-century prison and social reformer Elizabeth Fry.
“This was risky as it wasn’t quite our comfort zone: book publishing is very, very different from web development for example. But it was a bit of a passion of ours, and the company’s founder back in 1873 was a publisher, so it tied in with the history of Orphans Press. As publishers, we do everything from editing the first draft to printing the last dust jacket.”
Once again, the Bowdens targeted key players; a high flyer recruited from the editorial team of one of the ‘big four’ publishers, a head of design who joined from a FTSE top-100 company and a time-served, experienced production manager.
“We are not ourselves necessarily experts in all the fields we’ve chosen to expand into – there’s a real danger of printers wanting to dabble in a bit of web developing, for example, making big mistakes with coding, etc, because they haven’t chosen the best people in their field. We are really keen to reinforce the higher value of our design and production values as part of a creative agency. Good staff are the key.”
The result
And whereas the design service and web and app creation form part of Ophans Press, the publishing arm is a standalone initiative. Not only did it make sense to make Orphans Publishing an imprint of the printing company, but the Bowdens were keen not to send mixed messages to customers who might be confused by a company offering such diverse specialisms as book publishing and web development.
There was another reason, says Andy Bowden: “In the past we asked ourselves that by putting everything under one roof – design, print and web – were we running the risk of being seen as a jack of all trades and master of none? It’s only recently we have felt comfortable in our own skin in all our fields: the quality of our work in each area is so strong it speaks for itself and provides coordinated synergy for customers who use us across all our talents.”
None of the new ventures meanwhile has watered down the print side of the business: the business has a loyal and expanding customer base; one customer has been using Orphans Press for more than 50 years to produce a 1,500-run magazine every fortnight, while a client of 35 years still uses the printer for a quarterly journal in runs of 15,000.
The Bowdens are looking at the potential to market their in-house print software into services to help other printers streamline estimating, workflow and production planning. But in the finest Quaker tradition of self-help and cautious conservatism that guided the early Orphans Press, this latest generation of owners has no flashy ambition to expand services or capacity with undue haste.
“We want to grow the business and staff numbers, but have seen too many people in print go bust by going flat out to improve turnover – that’s a very very risky game and it’s not our game. We are about high quality and adding value to the business, growing steadily, marginally and sensibly.”
VITAL STATISTICS
Orphans Press
Location Leominster, Herefordshire
Inspection host Helen and Andy Bowden
Size Staff: 26; Turnover in excess of £1.75m
Established 1873
Products Newsletters, stationery, greeting cards and personalised documents, brochures, books and folders and large-format work including pop-up banners, posters and exhibition displays
Kit Two B2 five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 74s and a companion GTO SRA3 press, an HP Indigo 5500 digital machine and Epson large-format inkjet printers
Inspection focus Extending your capabilities beyond print
TOP TIPS
Define your new target market Determine the demographics such as target audience and geographic location of the new market.
Do your market research Are there gaps in this marketplace, what are your competitors doing and how can you establish a competitive advantage?
Assess your capabilities Ask yourself if you have the necessary competencies, such as internal skills, sales channels and infrastructure.
Prioritise key markets Markets should be prioritised based on the strategic fit and your company’s ability to serve them.
Develop market-entry options If you are entering an entirely new market, can you go it alone or should you consider a joint venture, partnership or acquisition?
Sort out the staffing Think how the new operations will be managed - will someone relocate or do you need to hire new managers?
Will the existing operation survive? Only expand into new markets if the current business can withstand the stress.
