As manufacturers continue the trend of relocating production to low wage economies abroad, the knock-on effects continue to be felt among suppliers at home in the UK.
Feeling the pinch have been our nation’s printers.
As overcapacity and competition drives down profit margins, the advent of e-marketing and new digital print technology has added pressure causing forward looking companies to rethink their entire business strategy.
One company tackling the problems head on is innovative North East company Hillprint Media.
With the help of strategic management consultancy RTC North, the Newton Aycliffe based company is repositioning its business to combat its changing market.
Richard Mortimer joined the company from school and today is managing director. He explained the company’s plans for change:
“We want to move away from a situation where print is our core service to a position where our design and marketing skills become our core service.
“Where in the past we have been a printer who can also design, we are actually going to be a creative marketing agency that is also doing print.
“Everything will become more integrated between design and the print floor and where in the past we have been involved in the production stage of the process, we will now be a whole service provider, involved from the first creative marketing concepts through to delivery of a new brand or campaign.”
Servicing clients including Saga, Nike, NUFC, Newcastle Building Society, West Ham FC and Sunderland Housing Group, the growth of the company’s creative side of the business has grown organically due to client demand:
“We have been working on this concept for a number of years and we are already doing creative marketing for some of our major clients. Sixty percent of artwork we print we have also designed.”
It’s a far cry from the days when print revolved solely around putting pre -designed artwork onto paper. Joining the company 38 years ago, Richard learnt his trade in the days of hot metal typesetting.
“I came in during the days of hot metal and have seen the advance of technology from typesetting and offset printing to the digital revolution we now live in.”
Hot metal technology revolved around the ‘Linotype Machine’ developed by Otmar Merganthaler in 1886 and which was used until the late 20th Century.
The Linotype Machine used a 90 character keyboard and molten lead alloy to create an entire line of metal type at once and allowed for much faster printing than with the Gutenberg-style system in which operators place down one letter, punctuation mark or space at a time.
Since the 1960s the development of new print technology has gathered pace and demanded innovative practice within the industry:
“Being ready to adopt new technology has been really important since I started with the Hill Group in 1968.”
The pace of change was such that by 1980 the company was forced to merge its Newcastle and Middlesbrough facilities with its Bishop Auckland plant:
“The amalgamation happened due to the amount of investment that was required in those days. If a new camera or litho print press was required we had to buy three and it just made no sense.”
Richard was involved in the management buy out in 1986 and in 1999 the company moved to its state of the art facility in Newton Aycliffe.
Employing 50 people, the company has continued to invest in the most advanced technology and recently invested over £2m in the latest 10 colour print press.
“In my day when we started printing four colour work, we had a single colour press. I would print 4000 sheets per hour, spend an hour washing the press to put the next colour, before printing the second colour.
“Today, our latest printer is a ten colour press on which we can run 10000 sheets per hour. This gives us a total number of 100,000 impressions per hour compared to 4000 on the single colour machine.”
While the development of larger multiple colour presses has been a big leap in terms of production, the most significant breakthrough for the future of the industry has been with the advent of digital print.
A more advanced offshoot of photocopier technology, Richard sees the development of more sophisticated digital printing eroding in to traditional print markets.
“The biggest change is going to be in digital printing. With this technology we don’t need to make up plates as the artwork will go straight to the printer. This has the added advantage of meaning every single copy can be personalised with a persons name and details. It’s going to be an incredibly powerful marketing tool.”
At present, the digital print technology is only cost effective on short run work, but Richard believes it’s a question of when not if:
“If you think that offset printing which is at the cutting edge today has been developing for 100 years, Digital is going to go a lot further. As one technology is reaching the end of its development, the other is just beginning.”
While the company also recognises the value in new electronic marketing techniques, Richard doesn’t see direct e-marketing replacing traditional printed media alltogether:
“We have helped some clients along that road, but they are finding it’s not as effective as it was first thought. Firewalls are getting more sophisticated and hitting the right audience with the right message is becoming more difficult. There will always be a place for well produced brochures and marketing literature.”
In building a creative marketing business on top of a 100 year heritage of innovation, no one would bet against Hillprint being a success in the world of brand management:
“There is a real buzz throughout the entire company. We have spent a lot of time working with our employees to explain our plans for the evolution of the business and everyone is fully behind us. It’s a very exciting time to be part of this company.”