Tangent's relaunched DPP set to enable print firms to boost profits with digital

"We are not selling print, we are selling profit," says Declan Malone as he sits in the new, central London offices of Tangent Communications. He is speaking prior to the relaunch of the Digital Print Partnership (DPP), a short-run digital trade service that he and Tangent believe could become a business worth more than £20m per year.

The concept is simple: to offer litho printers and smaller digital printers high-quality, cost-effective digital print via a simple to use web-to-print portal. The service allows the user to tailor their order and send it out with their branding along with an invoice, with mark-up, direct to the client - essentially it's a trade digital print service. There are no subscription or joining fees, you just pay for what you order.

"Our message is that you don't have to buy a press to be a digital printer," says Malone. "Digital print is growing. But to offer a good digital print service, you need a good digital press. In the current climate in particular, that is a massive barrier to entry for many as these presses cost upward of £200,000.

"Even if a company has got an order book strong enough to justify such an investment, there is no guarantee that they will be able to get the finance in place. In addition, it is a big risk for a company to take."

The DPP was founded by Malone at VLM last year, where he was chief executive. VLM had been set up to focus on the housing market and the Home Information Packs, but following the collapse of this market, VLM was forced into administration.

Tangent stepped in and acquired the DPP brand, recognising the potential of the service. "DPP has enormous potential and we will be looking to expand the service," said Nicholas Green, Tangent's chief executive at the time of deal.

Expansion plans
Expanding the service is top of Malone's list of priorities. There are currently around 200 regular users, but the target is to grow this to between 1,500 and 2,000. The relaunch on the 4 May, armed with a new website designed by Tangent One and a hefty marketing budget overseen by Tangent marketing director Andy Wheatley, marks the start of this ambitious growth strategy.

Malone is confident of achieving this growth target: "Loads of companies have a requirement for short runs. Many are either turning it away or trying to print in litho, which is not competitive. This product is giving them a foothold in the digital print market, without the capital expenditure.

"If you had £40,000 of retail digital print a month, it would be far less expensive to use the DPP than it would be to set up on your own. We remove all the associated costs of buying, servicing and insuring a press. We offer digital printing with no fixed overhead and with the economies of scale that you get with the volume of print we output."

The service currently targets short-run, non-personalised digital print. Malone believes that this focus is where the volume is: "In the digital market, you have transpromo and one-to-one personalisation, but short-run probably accounts for around 80% of the total market.

"Selling one-to-one digital print is a specialised business and you need a lot of expertise to do that effectively. We don't think that our customer base will be involved in that market."

Malone believes the service will be attractive not only to litho printers, but also to smaller copy shops with existing, but limited, digital printing capabilities.

The strength of the offering of the DPP, he says, is the low-cost access to the arsenal of state of the art HP Indigos ("the Rolls Royce of digital engines") that Tangent has at its London and Newcastle sites.

There are also plans to expand the service. "We are adding to the system constantly, writing new functions that don't just order print, but manage our clients' business cycle as well through one easy-to-use portal," Malone says.

"We are constantly evolving and listening to our clients. We are currently looking to expand into large-format and adding things like die-cutting facilities. As we get requests, we look to expand our service."

The DPP aims to be at the forefront of the growth in digital printing. In the current climate in particular, where investment is both hard to realise and fraught with risk, the service will potentially enable many to expand their offering without the normal associated risks. Malone believes the strength of the DPP is that a profit is guaranteed and, in a recession, that is a powerful offering.

DIGITAL PRINT PARTNERSHIP

Concept cost-effective digital print trade service
Owner Tangent Communications
Project manager Declan Malone
Launch date 4 May
Website www.digitalprintpartnership.com