The new wing is part of the book and commercial print group’s CPI Colour division, headed by Alison Kaye. Kaye re-joined CPI from St Ives in April and the new offering means she will be competing against her former employer in the display print space.
Kaye said CPI Connect had been set up in response to client demand “for a more complete solution”, particularly from luxury brands and high-end retailers.
CPI has recruited a team of three from Taylor Bloxham for the new venture. CPI Connect will be headed up by James Howe, who was most recently London sales manager for Taylor Bloxham. Prior to that he worked in business development roles at St Ives and BGP.
Point-of-sale technical expert Tom Jeffery, previously account director at Taylor Bloxham’s FastAnt Instore operation, and Karl Honemann-Hedges, who was also an account director at Taylor Bloxham, complete the team.
CPI said manufacturing would be via the group’s own existing litho and digital print capabilities, together with “a bank of fully vetted supply chain partners to ensure that there are no barriers to the projects that can be undertaken”.
A spokesman said: “We’ll be taking advantage of the scale of our group manufacturing resource for most of our requirements. For anything that we don’t have in-house, we’ll use our carefully vetted partners. The main point is the collective expertise and experience we have in James, Karl, Tom and the team, and the synergy with our existing work coupled with all our group facilities.”
The offering will include temporary and permanent point-of-sale solutions, including shop-in-shop, exhibition installations and shop fits.
CPI UK has sales of around £100m, employs just under 1,000 staff and operates from six locations.