Forum OVER TO YOU
workplace environments still developing strongly. This involves wide-format print, branding, theming, and creative design - nicely fitting our core skills, production equipment, and service offering. The office is becoming less formal and formulaic with break out zones, wellbeing areas and open meeting spaces. There is also an appetite for these environments to be refreshed at periodic intervals so generating ongoing revenue streams.
Dave McDonald, MD, Poppy Signs
https://www.poppysigns.co.uk/
What’s having the greatest impact on your business at the moment? The availability of skills and candidates to fill our vacancies as we continue to grow. We feel there is a wider shortage across the whole economy but its acute within our sector. There is an increased trend for skilled staff to switch to sub-contracting, especially sign fitters and wrappers - we’d prefer to always directly employ staff to ensure repeatable quality and service. We’re focusing on providing enhanced training and development opportunities for the team, together with offering a compelling package for those who join us as we currently have vacancies across most areas.
Where do you see the greatest wide-format opportunities? We see the ‘back to office’ trend continuing and growth in employee engagement via improved
What would make your day-to-day operations easier? We are bespoke manufacturers, and each job is markedly different - that said we are working more on standardising the common underlying elements of sales, workflow, manufacturing, and support. We’ll likely look at further training and upgrades to software and systems to help achieve this goal. This should reduce management overheads and move away from re-inventing the wheel many times over. On a wider economic level then whoever governs us needs to focus further on creating the most stable business environment - good companies will then create growth.
Your favourite bit of kit is..?
Our Platinum Q3 printer from Liyu UK. This 3.2m hybrid printer has been transformational to our business. Our product range has expanded greatly, and production is so much easier and faster. It’s a reliable workhorse that has allowed us to complete some incredible projects with impressive quality and scale. Liyu has allowed us to increase markets, revenues and margins. In terms of quality and value, there is nothing that comes near it. The downside is it’s so productive we are having to plan to upgrade our finishing capabilities to keep up.
What’s the best bit of business advice you’ve been given? It’s a cliché, but ‘work on the business rather than work in the business’, and after two decades I’ve not quite managed to really succeed as much as I want and need to in this respect (my New Years’s resolution is to keep working on this - as per the start of every year). It’s the most commonsense piece of advice I’ve ever heard. More time working on analysing business performance, productivity, marketing, opportunities, risks, staff development, even if just incrementally each week - this is the plan and over time it will accelerate our growth and improve service.
What are you most proud of achieving? This year marks our 20th anniversary. We’ve grown from a one-man band to become a significant regional sign company and we punch above our weight in the volume and type of projects we deliver and the valued clients we work with. We’ve been fortunate to have worked with some great customers and staff, many who have been with us since the early days. We’re proud that the business has given us the opportunity to support and sponsor many community charities and sports organisations.
What lesson does the wide-format sector need to learn?
As mentioned, we have a skills shortage in the sector and as individual companies we must organise and invest in our own training/development, but is there a role for the industry bodies to lead a programme or campaign at government level to look at this for the long-term. Growth in the wide-format industry is already limited by this shortage and those not taking proactive measures may struggle very soon.
VITAL STATISTICS
‘NAVIGATING VOLATILITY’, THE 2024 VISION REPORT FROM FUTUREPRINT FOR THE PRINT INDUSTRY HAS RECENTLY BEEN PUBLISHED AND THROWS UP SOME INTERESTING STATS
BASED ON DATA FROM 156 RESPONDENTS ACROSS 30 COUNTRIES. RESULTS REVEAL THAT AI,
SUSTAINABILITY AND SKILLS SHORTAGES ARE AMONG THE DEFINING ISSUES OF 2024. SO WHAT ELSE?
26.03% 64.10% 51.92%
78.21% 58.97%
said wide-format POS saw an increase in demand in 2023, behind labels (26.71%), flexible packaging (36.99%) and corrugated/folding carton packaging (39.04%).
said they expect sustainability to grow as an issue and trend in 2024, topping the list of ‘what do you expect to see permanently change in 2024?’
said skills shortages will the most defining change of 2024, ahead of continued increases in costs (energy, interest rates, inflation) at 47.44%, and an increase in digitisation/new tech to meet consistently changing demand (46.79%).
said the cost of production was one of the most important factors when investing in new technology, with environmental performance cited next (61.54%) followed by speed/quality of production (51.28% each). The ability to print on a wide range of media was earmarked by 39.10%.
answered ‘yes’ to the question: ‘Do you see a positive role for AI in the print industry?” 8.33% said no - the rest were unsure.
www.imagereportsmag.co.uk | 25
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