Strength in collaboration?

When it comes to business, it can often be tempting to heap the world on your shoulders, stride out into the breach and simply go it alone. Yet when the issues stack up, as they inevitably will, it sometimes takes a bigger person to ask for help.

Despite a growing overlap of service offerings, there still remains a distinct difference between printers providing wide-format work and core sign-makers. And whilst diversification stories seem to be dominating the headlines, there still exists a vast swathe of the sign industry that are not geared up to produce large orders of wide-format print.

This is where trade printers can offer a helping hand. If investing in a wide-format printer or adding to your existing capabilities is not top of your priority list, this does not mean you need to turn away requests for work. Contracting jobs out to trade printers can allow you to retain clients, secure customer satisfaction, and, in most cases, maintain a healthy profit margin on the work.

A friend in need

Indeed, Scott Conway, managing director of trade-only wide-format print supplier Venture Banners, would argue that, in many cases, sub-contracting work to a trade printer can be the most sensible economic decision.


He explains: “At Venture Banners we have a mixture of customers, some that have no wide-format print capabilities and outsource whatever orders they get to us, and others who have some capabilities, but outsource when demand gets too high.

“Most of our customers who have their own printers will tend to divert all banners and general wide-format work to us, while concentrating their smaller machines on things like vehicle graphics, which will get higher margins.”

He continues: “I have even had people say to me: ‘I’m just going to turn my printer off; it’s not worth me running it to print banners, because it costs me more money to run on my machine than it does to buy it off you’.”

So how is Venture Banners able to offer such competitive prices, enabling it to provide clients with a healthy margin whilst retaining enough profit to sustain a successful business? One answer is with its kit. Conway explains: “We have Vutek GS printers, each one capable of 200sq m/h of print.

“If someone wants to go out and buy a mid-range wide-format printer, which is quite a substantial bit of kit, a roller banner would take them between 20 minutes and half an hour; our printer will do it in about 90 seconds. It’s about the speed and the quality. Our machines are the Rolls Royce of wide-format printing; you cannot get better.”

As well as its superior machines, Venture Banners is also reliant on its bespoke management-information-system (MIS), as Conway explains: “We have an MIS that handles 1,000 separate order in an average month, which works out at about 13,000sq/m of print.

“The MIS takes orders from our dedicated trade-only website. You get your own login, which will show you all your previous orders. Once you place the order, it comes straight through into our workflow, from which you will receive email updates as it’s processed and eventually despatched.”
 
Secure your security

Indeed, it is this website and login system that is one of the key draws for sign-makers to choose Venture Banners as a trade print partner. You have to apply for your individual login, ensuring only real members of the trade can access the site and, therefore, the prices of that Venture Banners can provide.

Conway explains why this is such an important factor in its trade-only model: “The whole ethos of Venture Banners is to allow members of the trade to utilise our economies of scale and be able to get a good margin on our products. We’re fiercely protective of our trade prices, and everything is sent out under plain wrapping, with no trace of Venture Banners branding.”



He continues: “It’s very secure; our whole reputation is staked on it. We’ve heard some terrible stories, about people going to other printers and that printer then finding out who the end-user is, and contacting them directly, which is just outrageous. That’s the difference between a true trade printer and somebody who tries to squeeze trade work in alongside all the end-user work.

“The second that printer gets busy, the trade work goes to the back of the queue, as it’s not achieving the same amount of revenue, and you end up as a second class citizen.”

A softer touch

Another area many sign-makers will be getting requests for, and may choose to sub-contract out, is in soft signage. If this is the case, there are a growing number of specialist trade printers that cater for the production, and importantly finishing, of products such as flags, branded marquees, bunting, mesh banners, and even full mesh building wraps.

Established more than 32 years ago, one such firm is Hampshire Flags.  This family-run business produces a variety of soft signage products that range from hand-sewn one-off items to large runs of digitally-printed feather flags, as well as offering a bespoke design service. If you so require, it also supplies and installs an extensive range of flagpoles.

The 25-strong team at Hampshire Flag are based in Waterlooville, and are also recent winners of three prestigious business awards including ‘Small Business of the Year’.

The company’s managing director, Graham Wilkinson, outlines a key attraction of moving into providing soft signage and using a trade supplier to target key demographics: “There tends to be a national event of some kind every two years or so and it always serves as a boost to sales and production. Many people tend to go for products which are only suitable for the short term—the cheap and cheerful throwaway—but there is always the hardcore contingent which is interested in the longer lasting quality product.”

Jump on the bandwagon

Speaking from the other side of the coin, Gareth Parker, strategic marketing manager at Ricoh UK, is keen to assure sign-makers that there is a viable alternative to sub-contracting to trade printers.

He explains: “Traditional sign-making has a rich and proud heritage, but like many industries, it has seen a series of dramatic changes to its landscape over recent years. Many of these have been driven by the wide-spread adoption of wide-format printing, a technology that has transformed the signage sector and opened up tremendous new opportunities for the sign-maker. Despite this, many traditional sign makers continue to sub-contract out printed signage to trade printing partners, preferring instead to just manage the process for the customer.

O Factoid:  A banner that would take half an hour to print on a mid-range wide-format printer, can be done in 90 seconds on a top-of-the-range machine, revealing how trade printers make their margins. O

“However, ever more user-friendly machines, a comparatively low cost of entry, and continued healthy profit margins mean traditional sign-makers can now confidently consider adding wide-format printing technology to their product portfolio and offer a more rounded solution to their customers. Vertically aligning these technologies will strengthen the core competence of the traditional sign-making business and grow profitability, whilst keeping control over time-frames and quality, and greatly expanding services to further enhance relationships with customers.”

Indeed, it is having complete control over the products you supply your customers that will be one of the main draws for sign-makers considering investing in wide-format kit.

Parker continues: “Ricoh has a highly-respected track record of working closely with our customers to vertically align their technologies and transform their business processes. And, with the introduction of our new Pro L4100 Series latex wide-format printer to the market in March 2014, we can now bring this wealth of inter-national production print experience and knowledge into the sign market.


“The Ricoh Pro L4100 is a hugely versatile machine that can produce an extensive range of signage and display materials in high-quality colour for both indoor and outdoor applications. These include banners, exhibition, and POS graphics, decals, and vehicle signage and wraps; helping to open up new, profitable markets for the traditional sign-maker.”

A guiding light

Of course, as with any investment, the purchase of new machinery is something that needs to be thought out thoroughly before going ahead with. As with most things business related, the decision will often be dictated by financial factors. A sign-maker considering buying a wide-format printer needs to carefully analyse the figures to ensure they definitely stack up versus outsourcing to a trade partner.

In this process you are not alone, as Nick Woodcock, head of consumable sales at Signmaster Systems, explains: “We find the best method is quoting for the machine, and then running a few of the type of jobs that the customer usually sub-contracts out to a trade printer.


“From this, we work out the production cost regarding ink, media, and labour, and make sure they could first off produce the work cheaper than they currently source it. We then move towards working out a rate of return, to ensure that having the capability to complete orders in-house is a viable option for that particular client.”

In terms of recommending specific machines, Woodcock is unsurprisingly cautious, with so many varieties available on the market. He continues: “As you might expect it is difficult to select a certain machine to suit every company’s individual needs, as it all depends on what work they need to do. Yet print and cut machines can offer a full solution, whether you are printing banners, posters, or doing vinyl decals.



“Expanding the company’s plant list is often an excellent idea,” he continues, adding: “It can create business opportunities, as well as offer internal benefits, such as producing uniforms for your staff, and your own external signage or exhibition stands. Undoubtedly, external business opportunities will also be created due to the versatility of wide-format printers in general; you can access many different markets, including retail, construction signage, and vehicle wrapping—the list is endless.”

With both sides of the ‘sub-contracting’ versus ‘in-house’ debate presenting a convincing argument, the only certain truth to emerge is that what works for one firm, may not for another. Every sign-maker needs to consider their own operation, carefully check the figures, and see if they could be better off approaching their wide-format work from a different angle.

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