The digital print and typesetting company has moved premises from Shoreditch in east London to Custom House, Newham, next to the London Excel Centre, signing a 10-year lease on the new property, which at 604sqm is around 50% larger than the previous site.
On show at the open day this week were the fruits of the firm’s most recent digital investments from Canon, which were installed during the move in October last year.
The new kit includes two Canon imagePress C6010S devices, two Varioprint 120s and an Océ Varioprint 6320 Ultra+, which was the first to be installed in Europe.
DCS’s new facility also houses an Océ CS2344 large-format printer and a range of finishing equipment including wire and perfect binding.
Co-director of the business Tom Welch said the firm had wanted to bed in at the new site before showing it off to customers.
“It’s more economical than Shoreditch, where rents are going through the roof, and it’s a great location in terms of transport links as well,” he said.
He added: “We’re in a really fast expanding business area that we think will prove really valuable to us in the future.”
The £1.5m-turnover business, which was founded in 1985, produces a range of full colour and black and white work including merger and acquisition papers, corporate accounts, government documents and reports for a range of blue-chip clients, banks and academic establishments.
The business also produces perfect-bound books, ring binders, and a growing amount of large-format work, Welch said.
“We first started out as a financial typesetter but the UK lost a lot of typesetting to India in the early 2000s. We felt we couldn’t compete with that and realised we needed to diversify so we decided to grow what was then our small digital operation,” he explained.
“Typesetting is making a comeback bit by bit, though,” he added. “People are telling us they just don’t get the quality of work from India that they do on home soil. On top of that our digital side is growing and we’re also increasing our wide-format work, doing a lot more posters and banners for conferences for example.”
Welch said that the company had been focusing on controlled growth since 2008 resulting in around 10% revenue growth every year. “We want to increase that by another 20% this year and we have a few irons in the fire to help that.”
The 16-staff business aimed to increase its workforce to 20 by the end of the year, he said, and potentially take on its first apprentice.
“We want to tie more of our regular clients into contracts because it will give us more security. We want to make sure our staff are secure – you can’t produce good stuff if you don’t have good staff.”
