Less than a month from now, Reading and, more to the point, Richfield Avenue, will be overrun by around 80,000 music fans attending the annual three-day Reading music festival.

However, while the fans may enjoy the big-name acts, the same cannot be said for the sales force of Vee Combined Media Factory, in particular David Fincham, sales director at the print and data business. "Traffic becomes a nightmare. The roads are congested all week," he laments. His frustration is undoubtedly shared by other companies that reside only minutes from the site of the long-standing event.

Festival woes aside, the feeling within Vee is an altogether more positive one and of a company very much on the up. The business was founded nearly 25 years ago under the name Riverside. The printer, which also offered finishing and fulfilment services, operated under that name until Berkshire-based Volume Group acquired it in June 2008. By November, Riverside was no more, making way for Vee Combined Media Factory.

"When we acquired Riverside it printed, finished and fulfilled for us," says Caroline Dover, managing director of Vee. Volume's plan was to promote its new offering to the existing Riverside clients while offering print and fulfilment to its other data and production clients, creating a "combined media factory," explains Dover. Volume had used Riverside for printing services for a decade prior to the acquisition so synergies were already in place between the businesses.

With Riverside's operations bedded-in, you could argue Vee is now doing what it says on the tin, with regards to its ‘media factory' ambitions. Its offering is focused around a range of cross-media services, namely print, data processing and campaign creation. As the name would suggest, Vee has a foot well-and-truly in the door of each sector and uses each, be it print, data or otherwise, when required.

Expanding volume
Volume Group was established in 1997 and now employs 86 staff across five divisions, which include GlobalDM, Vee and Volume Technologies. As part of the £5.9m turnover group, Vee employs 22 staff, and a recent focus of the company has been to drive its expansion into personalisation through the adoption of digital print.

Earlier in the year, the company installed an HP Indigo 5500 to do just that. Producing short-run work for a client base that includes customers in the publishing, agency and IT sectors, the spend came to help the business "stay ahead of the communications curve" and complement its two B2 Heidelberg Speedmaster five-colour presses.

"Digital print is a very important part of our future. What we've got and the services we can offer is an exciting place to be," says Dover. However, she believes that a company will not grow simply by coupling a digital press and a database together. "Anybody can print and personalise on a basic name and address basis. We look at how you can use variable data more intelligently, by moving the use of data on."

One such way is the use of Vee's own software application designed to handle international data for clients abroad. The application looks at foreign fonts and flags up if something is wrongly spelt or formatted. Certain jobs need to be translated and formatted for a wide range of customers in different countries so accuracy of the data is paramount in such situations.

"There's a definite synergy between data, print, studio resource and fulfilment," says Dover. "What we endeavour to do is combine all media production, without restriction, and demonstrate how effectively they can all work together." She adds that by using data intelligently and making campaigns more targeted, the data is continuously improved and in return, so are success rates.

Dover and the team at Vee has set itself a number of goals, namely to develop its existing clients and encourage them to take advantage of all of the company's services. A keen emphasis has also been placed on supporting its cross-media campaigns through personalised digital print as well as e-mail and SMS messaging. If one thing is clear from Dover it is that Vee is a company that's going places and one that's going upwards. "If you put a positive spin on the business you're in, it can have a knock-on effect on your staff and clients. We don't intend to sit back and let things happen," she says. And with the 2009 event nearly upon us, it appears Fincham will have his last weekend in August ruined for many years to come.

VEE COMBINED MEDIA FACTORY
Established June 2008
Staff 22
Based Reading, Berkshire
Turnover £1.4m
Managing director Caroline Dover
Kit Two Heidelberg B2 five-colour Speedmasters, HP Indigo 5500 seven-colour digital press, two Wohlenberg guillotines, Autobond laminator, Stahl folder