Steve Baker, managing director of Baker Self Adhesive Labels, has some uncompromising advice to offer printers: "You can either join a recession or you can go out and put your balls on the line." Unsurprisingly, his Walthamstow-based label print house has taken the ‘balls out' approach by becoming the UK's first customer for the HP Indigo WS6000 digital press.
It's this willingness to invest and take risks that has seen the company grow from relatively humble beginnings. Baker's parents, Roy and Marian Baker, started the Baker Self Adhesive Label Co in 1973, at which time an old caravan was used as offices for the Kings Cross-based company.

"I was 11 at the time and if you wanted to see what your father did for a living the only time you could do that was to go into the factory on a Saturday. For my sins, I've ended up in the industry doing it myself," says Baker.

The business moved around every seven years or so, doubling in size with every move. "It was primarily sheetfed then, it was a good area to cut your teeth," says Baker.

The company moved into flexo in the mid 1980's, running three Delta SR520 machines 10 hours a day. Its aggressive investment programme continued the following decade with the purchase of its first Nilpeter 2400 in 1992, swiftly followed by a second in 1995. The trinity of Nilpeter machines was completed in 2001, with a 2500 machine being installed.
 While flexo still has a big part to play at the 45-staff business, especially when printing longer runs, Baker has since been bitten by the digital print bug and hasn't looked back.

Digital excursion
Baker took full control of the company as managing director in 2002 and made his first foray into digital with HP in 2006.
"We've always been a short- to medium-run printer with the trade work we do. Because of this, we end up doing the odds and sods that other people either can't do or don't want to do," he says. By his own admission, Baker had been looking at the digital market since 2000, but it wasn't until the HP ws4050 came out that he finally felt the quality was as good as things were going to get at that point.

"The machine suited us in the sense that it would carry out short-run work and just tick along," says Baker. The £600,000 investment helped business grow steadily and volumes increased. Little more than a year later, it reached the stage where Baker had to make the decision to start running double shifts or invest in a second digital press.

He decided on the latter, with a ws4500 arriving in 2008, which has since been upgraded to the printer's latest addition, the UK's first HP Indigo WS6000. Baker says the WS6000 is a much faster press that opens up longer run jobs that would have formerly been printed on its flexo kit.

"Previously, digital was only suited to the shorter runs, but this investment has made medium runs an option on the digital side," he adds.

Despite substantial cash injections into new technology, Baker says the company has not actually grown because the market has changed dramatically. It's the way the market has changed that has proved a bone of contention for Baker, as it has for many other companies within the sector.

He says: "Profits have been eroded as people have come into the digital label arena without understanding the industry. A five-year cycle of erosion has been advanced by about three years and these prices then become the market price. It's incredibly frustrating to see people say ‘we can get it done cheaper'. At the end of the day, if we quote a job at £300 and someone says they can get it done for less than £200, what can you do?"

Baker's response is to be proactive. "You can bleat about it, but you need to take action and a way to do that is through investing. Now, with the latest WS6000 press, we're doing just that, opening up bigger, longer markets for digital printing."
Now, with a £5m annual turnover, a growing customer base and an up-to-date suite of technology, the London printer is carving itself out a niche.

"We have a vision to have a bank of these digital presses and to become the production line for our trade clients," he says.
Baker's experience shows that to survive in the current economic climate, you need to keep on top of the market, stay ahead of the competition and ultimately keep your customers happy. "The trade sector is unsympathetic and you need to deliver what's expected when it's expected. They have their clients too after all".

It's a demanding market, but Baker has shown he has the balls to put his company in the firing line in an attempt to beat the recession - and so far it seems to be working.

Baker Self Adhesive Labels
Based Walthamstow
Established 1973
Managing director Steve Baker
Turnover £5m
Clients Trade
Kit Hp Indigo WS6000, ws 4050, Nilpeter flexo presses