Business

W hen managing director Leslie Manning started up Printflow with his now-retired business partner James Barr in 1986, they armed themselves with Xerox copiers and small offset presses to supply the City of London's in-house print departments. Fast-forward 22 years and Printflow has a turnover of £5m and employs 45 staff.

Having laid Printflow’s solid foundations, Les, as he is known to all, is nowadays happy to let his account director son Paul and sales director David Timpson do the talking for him when it comes to his company’s future. Paul says that the business is enjoying “steady” year-on-year growth and is targeting a developing contract base.

He explains: “We’re always going for more contracts and putting in for tenders. It ties in to why we continue to put so much time and effort into securing certifications. Print is changing; we need to continue to set ourselves apart from the general printer.”

The company has placed great emphasis on finely tuning all areas of its operation to ensure the business is a tightly run ship. Securing the ISO 9001 management system certification heralded the beginning of this earlier in the year. And since then, it has already added Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certificates.

Timpson says the 9001 standard helped the company tighten up its structure and, in turn, made it more efficient. He adds that the certification forces a company to look at itself and that it helps analyse problems, as well as fixing them.

The next stage
Paul has, in the past, been critical of the administrative nature of some tender processes, citing some as poorly-run or having too much of an emphasis on a company’s annual turnover, rather than its ability to complete the job. While those views are still upheld, Printflow’s increasing portfolio of accreditations has, according to Paul, “helped us tick another box and progressed us to that next stage”.

Printflow moved into its current 1,300m2 residence in 1990. It operates 24 hours a day, six days a week, on two floors, running a fleet of digital and litho presses. Its digital operation alone outputs 1.5m colour and 8m mono prints every month on kit including a DocuTech 6180, an iGen3 and a DC8000AP, all from Xerox.

Much of the work the company carries out is printed on FSC- and PEFC-certified paper as standard, a policy that ties-in with its aim to become ISO 14001-accredited in the next few months. Timpson says the key to securing the environmental standard is constant improvement. “Often such practices and initiatives you need in place are common sense,” he adds.

Printflow’s green push is not something it’s gone into half-heartedly and it has employed an environmental consultant for the past 18 months to oversee its various green practices. “It will save us money by helping us become more efficient and, like ISO 9001, it will help make us more competitive. If you don’t have it, you wouldn’t get through the initial stage of many pre-qualification questionnaires,” says Paul.

Ultimately, while Printflow is pushing for contracts and new clients, the company is adamant that any one customer will not make up more than 10% of its turnover. “We don’t want to end up reliant on one client,” adds Paul.

The company attributes much of its success to its customer retention – some clients have been with the company since day one. It has also experienced considerable growth in the demand for its focused digital print offering. Paul says: “Colour digital has been going though the roof. Demand can be seasonal, but, across the board, we are doing about 300 jobs a week at the moment.”

With plans to move to 24/7 shift, Printflow is also aiming to wield its digital press power to help it build up a multi-channel offering. Timpson says: “With margins on traditional print on a definite downward trend, cross-media offers another revenue stream. Personalised print is not about what it costs, but what it is worth.”

While countless companies are falling by the wayside every day, Printflow is investing in the business and pushing for new customers and, because of that, the company seems as well placed as any to weather the current economic storm. Perhaps, if it continues in a similar vein for the next 30 years, the next Manning generation will be as excited to join the company as the previous two.

PRINTFLOW FACTFILE
Location Clerkenwell, London
Turnover £5m
Staff 45
Year founded 1986
Sectors Commercial, trade, financial, events and retail
Kit Xerox DocuTech 6180, iGen3 and DocuColor 8000AP, Heidelberg MO and GTOs