Widthwise Discussions
market. We’ve been lucky that staff haven’t moved from here, but across Glasgow alone we’ve seen people moving from one business to another, and then competition between two firms to offer the right package to get that person. Salary expectations have been pushed up to a point where that can’t be sustained. Forster: Our partners’ installation costs have increased so ours will increase - that’s outside our control because we don’t want to shop around, we want to stick with people we know and trust. Materials costs, especially flexible substrates, have gone up in cost too. And then there are things like rising energy costs. There’s a lot we have to take on the chin because a lot of it you have to absorb and not pass on to customers. Last year our margins dipped but our revenues grew substantially. Over the last ten years I’d say margins have stayed around the same overall though. Kapoor: Turnover is steady but margin pressure is an issue. Raw materials and staff costs are my biggest area to manage.
More than six out of ten said they expected the UK wide-format market to grow over next two years. Do you think we can expect the wide-format digital inkjet market to keep growing? Forster: Because we work on a long-term basis I know how much revenue I already have written down for next year and that’s already about a third of what we’ve done this year - so that’s a good place to be. And we can see new sales leads staring to convert to there is certainly buoyancy. McCombe: For us it’s about how we can grow our customer-base. A lot of that is looking at how to be more proactive, on things like the use of sustainable products etc, which capture customer attention. We see it as our role to promote that kind of thing. Also, we invested quite heavily last year in dye-sub, for flags, and we’re trying to get that off the ground. It’s not grown as we’d have liked it to this year - it’s a bit shy of target - but we are looking at areas where we can specialise and add services to make customers increase their spend. Kapoor: I doubt it will grow over next two years. There’s no reason to suggest why it would.
We’ve seen lots of diversification over the last couple of years, with many PSPs offering new services and applications to new markets/customers. So are large-format PSPs increasingly ‘generalist’ rather than ‘specialist’ in the array of print/services they provide - and how do you compete if that’s the case? Forster: To be honest we tend to offer a fairly limited range of products because of our marketplace, construction. We’re not becoming more generalist so it’s a difficult question for me to answer. McCombe: I think our whole issue was that we were trying to offer services to everybody, to in turn help them become more generalist in what they could sell. I am on the board of Print Scotland and I do see more print companies starting to offer a wide gamut of print applications and if that opens up more print opportunities I think that’s good. Kapoor: We consider ourselves as specialist in what we do - graphics and joinery.
Nearly half of the print bosses interviewed in the Widthwise poll said growing turnover was their top
‘must-do’ over the coming months. What are your top priorities for 2024 and beyond? McCombe: Fabric! That’s where we’re really looking to focus. That and higher capacity flatbed applications. Our hope is to have moved by 31 March 2024 to give us the space and scope to do that because we think we’re missing some opportunities, especially in soft signage as a trade service. Forster: We’ll continue to look into sustainability and the offerings we can deliver in terms of PVC-free product. And to be honest, the best way to grow your business is through fantastic account management. Kapoor: Increase turnover, reduce headcount and to create more efficient work practices.
Widthwise data continues to paint a confused picture when it comes to the environment. Where do environmental issues/actions sit on your list of priorities? Forster: Sustainability is the number one priority for this business - apart from health and safety. In terms of product offering we’ve secured a considerable amount of business on the back of PVC-free solutions. We use Kavalan as our chosen flexible substrate, something we started testing back in 2020, and we’ve done some really big campaigns using it now - the most recent was about 3,000m2
for Ikea at Oxford Circus.
Also, each month we fund the planting of new trees with our partner Ecologi. We also have a Banner Karma initiative too, where banner taken off scaffolds is taken back to the warehouse and then taken away by local farmers to use as agricultural coverings. We also work with a partner who can turn our wraps into tote bags, and we’ve just started working a waste-to-energy project with Reconomy. We recently shipped 4,000m2
of PVC
mesh to a facility on Oldham to be turned into energy, and we have a certificate to prove that’s been done! McCombe: I recently had a meeting with Scottish Enterprise about how they could support us in producing a Net Zero plan. I stared the audit and have found it really quite challenging - I wasn’t sure how I could fit the information into the language they using. We’ve done a lot over the last ten years - we’ve got rid of solvents and we’re moving onto LED inks etc. But going forward I think our biggest challenge is educating our customers. There is this perceived cost
www.imagereportsmag.co.uk | 9
THE BEST WAY TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS IS THROUGH FANTASTIC ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT. GREG FORSTER
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