The challenge

Googling ‘commercial printers’ plus a certain city or town is not for the faint-hearted print boss. What will greet them if they’ve entered their own postcode is of course an onslaught of competitor businesses. A probably quite a worthwhile, sobering reminder of how many other businesses potentially offer exactly the same as you, it can nonetheless be a terrifying insight into how dispensable your services potentially are.

Branching out into more niche applications is of course increasingly many companies’ answer. As is ensuring the business offers other kinds of added-value services, such as particularly speedy turnarounds, impeccable customer service or exceptional quality. But how can you really ensure you’re famed for this?

The answer for London-based commercial, POS and book printer Screaming Colour is entering industry awards. And of course not just entering them, but winning them as often as possible too.

Established as a digital printing specialist right from its inception 20 years ago, Screaming Colour was one of the first firms in Europe to install Indigo presses. The company has since worked to build a reputation for high quality. 

“Quality is essential as we produce strategic documents and marketing products that are normally for presentations or for our clients to win a significant contract,” says managing director Iain Moring.

Since making its first foray into industry awards schemes, with the 2006 PrintWeek Awards, the company has found these are an effective, easy-to-communicate way of assuring customers of its capabilities.

Screaming Colour secured a commendation that first year and has triumphed in a digital printing category at the PrintWeek Awards for five of the past six years, as well as, most recently, taking the Post-press Company of the Year award in 2013.

“It’s something that we always had in our mind to do and wanted to get involved in. 2006 was the first time that we made a determined effort to actually go and enter and we haven’t looked back since,” says Moring.

The firm feels a key challenge in putting together a strong submission is differentiating the entry from others. Another challenge is thinking about what the judges are looking for.

The method

Careful deliberation is needed, then, in deciding what projects to focus on.

“We consider everything from extremely high quality printing to great finishing and uniqueness. It’s also about trying to look at what the criteria set by the judges are for that particular award and making sure that we actually fulfil that requirement,” says Moring. 

“Challenges they want to know about include timescales, how the products were produced and on what machines. This is all important information that I believe the judges are looking for to get a full picture of the piece,” he adds.

At Screaming Colour, the shortlist of potential pieces to enter is chosen by a committee of six or seven people. The process itself takes the team two to three weeks, from initial discussions through to putting together the submission. 

“The cost in man-time is probably a couple of days between everybody. We split the responsibility between us,” says Moring. “We normally nominate a team leader who correlates all of the information and the samples and puts the piece together. We’re fortunate that we have a number of people who are good at doing that sort of thing so we tend to have somebody different doing it each time.”

Moring adds: “We tend to produce a shortlist of potential pieces that we think have relevance and show real quality, and then look to narrow that down. For the PrintWeek Awards I think it’s four pieces that are needed and that’s relatively typical of the awards we do. So we get a shortlist of maybe eight or nine pieces and then argue, discuss and negotiate as to why we should put a certain piece in over another.”

Moring stresses that involving people from all departments in the decision-making and information-compiling processes is critical.

“Sales and account managers obviously have a great understanding of the challenge the client had, which we think is an important part of the awards,” he says. “Production managers will be able to discuss some of the production challenges. Those things combined paint the whole picture of what makes the piece particularly challenging, exciting and an illustration of our quality.”

Other staff are actively encouraged to get involved in the process too. “Although there’s a small team who make the ultimate decisions as to what pieces are going in, we like to get as much input from the staff as possible,” says Moring. “The whole team get very excited and have a lot of pride when we are fortunate enough to win an award.”

At a sector-specific awards event last year, the company took home the gong for ‘Best use of finishing’ and was shortlisted in the ‘Creative use of substrates’ category. The business is currently looking into entering other awards schemes, but picks them carefully. It believes in selecting only relevant awards and categories.

“There is a definite cost in effort and resource so you have to feel that there is a good return on that time,” says Moring. “This is why we select the more prestigious awards, because they’re going to have an impact on how we’re viewed by our existing and potential clients.”  

Moring is open to branching out in future though. “The awards that we’ve historically entered have all been to do with quality of work, but we are interested in the future in looking at awards that focus on the people and quality of the service that we give which is an important area of what we do,” says Moring.

The result

The wins the firm has brought home have of course greatly benefitted the company. Bolstering its reputation for quality has certainly brought new business Screaming Colour’s way, reports Moring.

“We’ve had enquiries where the customer has said that they got our name through hearing about us winning the PrintWeek award,” he says.

The company promotes its award wins in multiple ways. “We market the awards on our website and they’re nicely positioned on email headers,” says Moring. “A lot of the promotion is done through sales conversations. Being acknowledged for an award opens doors. The fact that we’ve won these awards and have this reputation in the industry is one of the most important tools that we can draw upon in our sales process.”

Being part of an award-winning company has also boosted staff morale. “The day after an awards win there’s a real buzz about the office. It goes on throughout the weeks and months afterwards and helps morale from the production point of view.”

It also helps to attract higher quality candidates to apply for jobs within the company. Moring says: “We describe ourselves as a multi-award-winning digital print company in job adverts. I do believe it helps us in the recruitment process because higher quality people are more discerning in terms of the type of organisation they want to work with.”

And the awards ceremonies themselves are great networking opportunities. “The traditional print industry has a tight network of people who have a genuine interest in other organisations, how they’re doing and how they work. It’s a good opportunity to catch up and compare stories and notes with similar organisations that we don’t get the chance to speak to otherwise.”

Of course entering awards doesn’t always go to plan. “We did have to clap politely when we didn’t win the PrintWeek award one year, but it just made us more determined to do better next time. The awards are important to us and we’re good winners, not bad losers,” says Moring.  

Moring’s only caveat to a policy of being an awards regular is to consider how it will look if, one year, your company doesn’t enter or doesn’t win anything. In this regard, being a multi-award-winning company can be a double-edged sword and businesses should work hard to ensure that quality doesn’t slip. 

But Moring believes this is ultimately an excellent motivator. “We’re determined to keep the quality up and put ourselves in the running the following year,” he says. “I think that helps maintain the quality ethos throughout our business.” 

SCREAMING COLOUR 

Vital statistics 

Location London and Slough

Inspection host Iain Moring, managing director

Size Turnover: £7m; staff: 90

Established 1994, in London

Products The company specialises in manufacturing products for the B2B market, such as hardback books with accompanying presentation boxes, art catalogues, leaflets, booklets, bespoke pop-up stands and more. It offers large-format, litho and digital printing and has expertise in finishing. Clients range from big financial institutions and property companies to advertising agencies, mostly around central London

Kit HP Indigo 7500 and 5000, KBA Karat 74, Heidelberg GTO 52, Vutek 2000 wide-format press and a comprehensive range of finishing kit covering sewing, PUR binding, foiling, debossing, embossing, box-making, folder-making and cutting. Most recently the firm has installed a Kolbus Casemaker DA260 and high-speed laser motioncutter from Themediahouse

Inspection focus The benefits of entering industry awards

The 2014 PrintWeek Awards are now open for submissions. Visit www.printweekawards.com

DO IT YOURSELF

Following suit

It can be highly beneficial to any printing company to enter industry awards. However, it can take a few weeks to get the material for the submission piece together, and there is an overall time cost spread between those involved. It’s therefore important that awards and projects to enter are picked carefully to highlight a particular strength. 

“We’re relatively selective and like to go for quality rather than quantity,” says Moring. “The award needs to be relevant to our business and significant. The PrintWeek scheme in particular is held in very high esteem both by ourselves and our clients.”

Moring adds that it is crucial to take time over the written piece that goes with the entry, as it represents a chance to sell the originality, detail and challenges of a project. “It’s an important part of the whole process. We spend as much time on getting the descriptive part of the process right as we do the samples.”

Potential pitfalls

Companies entering industry awards need to ensure that everything is prepared well in time for submission deadline. They also need to be careful not to be vague when putting together the written submission, as judges will look for lots of detail. 

Top tips

• Be selective about the awards you get enter. One that has little relevance or credibility has the potential to water down the effect of any more impactful awards you might win.
• Ask all staff for input as it boosts morale and makes them feel included.
• Don’t be a bad loser. Sweep defeat aside and come back fighting the following year!

Moring’s top tip

Be sure that you know – and fulfil – the criteria of the award that you’re entering and have a full understanding of what the judges are looking for: “Make sure that what you put in the submission differentiates you. You need to put pieces in there that really stand out.”