The first Nettl webshop was opened in September 2014 with 25 signed by June last year, when the group announced a new strategy to make Nettl a central component of the group’s business operations.

Many Nettl web shops were previously Printing.com franchises while the latter has attracted 15 new signings since Grafenia simplified the subscription model in February this year.

“The world has changed in a lot of ways and we truly have a growing network because I think we have something that genuinely helps clients and that is helping our partners to grow their businesses,” said group chief executive Peter Gunning.

“Even though it’s been a really tough time for a lot of people, especially since the Brexit vote, we are still adding partners. Not only that, but a lot of people have asked to revisit the opportunity once they’ve ridden out the current uncertainties,” he added.

Gunning said that the series of seven Pow Wow events planned across England were designed to help their Nettl and Printing.com partners to come together in an informal environment to share ideas, catch up on developments they may have missed and “get through the tough times together”.

“Being in business on your own is quite a lonely place, especially at a time like this, so just having peers to share things with in person rather than just electronically is really helpful,” he said.

“Historically we’ve done larger meetings with anywhere up to 100 people in a room, but sometimes in situations like that it's the dominant voices that hold the floor, so we wanted to create a more personal and less intimidating environment,” Gunning explained. 

The Pow Wow events differ from the Expoganza roadshow that Grafenia launched in January this year, which are open events aimed at the graphic industry and the wider Grafenia network and have so far taken place in Manchester, London and Bristol. More of these are in the pipeline, Gunning said.  

The Pow Wows are for partners only and will be more personal with only around 15 people attending each. They are set to take place between 5 and 29 September in Manchester, Cambridge, Glasgow, London and Birmingham.

Gunning said the events would focus on helping partners to understand and make full use of all the technology at their disposal.

He explained that the business had stepped up its automation processes in order to provide more streamlined and impactful benefits for its partners, such as its automated W3P Filecheck system, and often sends out daily updates that could potentially be missed.

“Sometimes it’s easier with these things to actually be in the room to understand how to use it. Anything we can do centrally to help them sell more to their clients and to make their clients lives easier, that’s what we’re trying to show.”

“Some of our partners are great at following best practice but others perhaps because of time burdens or knowledge deficit aren’t, so we want to address that.

“We also want to help them grow so we want to listen to what they need and want and the Pow Wows are a great forum to do that in,” Gunning added.

Further details of the free events can be found here.  

The last year has been a busy one for Grafenia and one that Gunning, who was appointed chief executive in October 2015 following the departure of Tony Rafferty, termed as "a transition year".

The group posted a loss of £260,000 in its year-end figures in June reflecting the restructure and change within the business and its brands. Gunning said he was bullish moving forward. 

Earlier this month Grafenia chairman Les Wheatley stepped down, with the board choosing to find a replacement internally in the coming weeks.