The company claimed the growth was driven by cross selling and the realisation of its new print management model.

The preliminary full year figures showed a significant improvement in operating cash flow to £27.9m and a 42% reduction in debt to £26.3m.

Steve Vaughan, chief executive of Communisis, said: "We are pleased with the results. 2007 has gone every bit as well as expected and, in some respects, a lot better."

The company's once troubled Leeds direct mail factory is now "firing on all cylinders" following a turnaround.

Profit at the site was up 129% to £3.9m in the second half of 2007 boosted by the installation of a full colour HP Indigo printer, which is already working close to capacity.

The new account management structure installed by the company last year has seen cross-selling to customers and payment rates rise. In 2006 Communisis was plagued by late payment and by the end of the year a third of customer debt remained overdue.

Most attention to alleviate the problem was focused on the top 60 customers. By increasing the credit control responsibility of account managers, the company has reduced late payment within these accounts from 28% to 8%, with a total of 13% of all accounts overdue at the end of 2007.
According to Vaughan, the new structure has also boosted the company’s cross-selling abilities. "We are now selling services peripheral to print such as customer data and artwork. Print remains important to our offering but increasingly revenue is derived from services that cluster around print."

One such area is the transpromo market which from a standing start in 2005, Communisis has become the second largest statement printer in the UK.

Vaughan said: "Over the past few months we have seen our big customers talk about transpromo in a much more serious way than ever before. They are talking about investment commitments and looking at their data warehousing getting ready for a transpromo drive. That is a real opportunity for us."

Vaughan famously claimed in PrintWeek in October that print management as we know it is dead. These results support that claim. Its print sourcing business, while still a significant revenue driver, has seen profits fall as expected.

Indeed, the company now offers many of its clients zero margin print sourcing. Vaughan said that it will not be phased out but it will continue to decline as a source of profit.

"Our new print management model is based on technology," he said. "There is a set of products and associated services at the heart of that and we are seeing increased demand for these services from our clients."