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In Tonbridge, a bright and airy renovated chapel resonates with the sounds of a successful marriage. The union completed last June between IPS and Charterhouse has spawned a company brimming with confidence and a growing list of clients. So how do you successfully merge two companies, both financially strong with good client bases in their own right?

Matthew Stevens, director, and Guy Meyers, commercial and communications manager, say the companies’ integration was relatively easy because the companies both had similar outlooks. “It was a merger that brought like-minded people together,” says Stevens.

By joining forces, the new organisation instantly became a UK top five print manager. The biggest challenge facing the company is “to continue to sustain growth and make sure that the entrepreneurial attitudes stay at the forefront of the business”, says Stevens. It is important for Charterhouse to retain its small business qualities while still securing clients the benefits of belonging to a larger company.

Pan-European operations
Stevens confirms that the company has developed relationships with more than 450 manufacturers in 21 European countries. “We decide whether to source or manage the account locally. We work best on a sole supplier basis as this means we can “get under the bonnet of the client”. However, he points out that Charterhouse very rarely uses print from abroad for the UK market.

According to Stevens, European clients are asking the company to become more local and they have answered these requests with recent office openings in Brussels, Amster­dam and Stockholm, while Paris is also listed as a potential site.

The new corporate identity (“the Charterhouse sum”) was announced last November and one of its phrases is “surprising ingenuity”. Stevens says Charterhouse’s work for Sony is an example of its innovative ingenuity. Historically, Charterhouse has supplied Sony resellers with tool kits consisting of a PowerPoint presentation and CDs. But, as Stevens points out, there was no way of tracking how the collateral was to be used and it was an expensive exercise.

Charterhouse met with Sony to discuss the next toolkit but, using a combination of its technical knowledge, set out to produce a website to facilitate easy dissemination of promotional material and give Sony the ability to check what was going out. Sony had previously spent €100,000 on the toolkit project but, using Charter­house’s approach, it kept costs at €85,000, a significant saving. The project meant Sony could generate branded quality and was completed by Charterhouse’s programmers in just three weeks.

Stevens confirms that the print management business is changing. “Ultimately, it’s about what the client wants and you cannot treat all the clients the same. We need to look at the clients’ aspirations and we marry that up with our approaches and developments. Our clients are employing expensive, creative agencies – their core competencies are on the creative side and not necessarily for cost-effective artwork.” This is where Charterhouse continues to benefit clients.

As well as holding ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 accreditation, Charter­house is also the first print management firm in the UK to become carbon neutral. Its Carbon­Neutral Print Production program uses bespoke software, developed in partnership with The CarbonNeutral Company, to calculate the CO2 emissions from any print job. A customer can pay to neutralise their CO2 emissions with the money then invested in a selection of carbon-neutral offset projects. In addition, the emissions data built up over time allows Charterhouse to advise their clients on potential ways to reduce their future emissions.

Charterhouse is increasingly being asked to support clients’ expanding interest in environmental issues. Currently, the firm says three to four of its top clients are looking at using its CarbonNeutral Print Production program, and commercial and communications manager Meyers says they are moving to ramp up installation this year.

There’s a buzz about Charterhouse. Doors fly open and close as the team whirls through its business – it does indeed seem to be a factory of ever increasing ideas.