At the start of this year Leicester-based Haybrooke launched its printing as a service (PaaS) procurement model, in which the firm matches the requirements of its PDQ customers to suitable print providers and suppliers.

The business assembles the supply chain for its customers and gives them access to live pricing from a full roster of suppliers allowing them to make the right procurement to suit them, as well as having full transparency to track progress and delivery.

According to chief executive John Roche, PaaS has grown its trade customer base since launching in January, rising from three to 17 between January and July.

Meanwhile, revenues have rocketed by 171% over the same period with the business on target to be processing £1m worth of print a year by May 2022, he said.

“There is every indicator that our growth will continue and we are talking to one or two clients now that could accelerate that hugely if we were successful and win those accounts,” Roche told Printweek.

According to Roche, its explosive growth is due in part to a higher average order value seen by the business, due to it offering a ‘traditional, print supply chain’ that could accommodate variations on products, as opposed to online ‘price-driven print’.

The growth has also been boosted by a partnership with office supplies and services industry trade association Boss Federation, providing its reseller members with access to its PaaS model, Roche said.

“We are encouraged by the growth of PaaS and when we talk to the member resellers of Boss Federation, some of them don’t have a print category,” he explained.

“So we’re helping them set one up. Often they have little knowledge of the printing process, or how to buy and communicate with printers and our system provides a framework for them to be able to run a print category with limited knowledge.”

He continued: “So now that we have experience with helping these organisations, we want to extend that to individuals and small companies in the printing sector who do have experience and maybe want the ‘out of the box’ service that we can provide and potentially help them kick start a new career buying and selling print.”

Roche said the business was particularly thinking of people that had perhaps been left without work as a result of the pandemic and could use the opportunity to start a new career. Small businesses of two or three people are also being offered the chance to train too, he added.

“We will give them the infrastructure, with the PaaS portal, and everything they need. All they need is the confidence to go out and sell print through the system,” he explained.

“We see it as a series of training sessions starting remotely but moving to our site eventually. It will be tailored to the individual and where they are not so knowledgeable about print they have the opportunity to visit our print suppliers to see the printing and finishing process. We plan to deal with different skill sets and knowledge bases and plug any gaps,” Roche continued.

He said the business saw it as a way of growing the business via a franchise-type model.

“In essence the people we provide this opportunity to will need to be fairly entrepreneurial. They will be taking a risk but they will enjoy the rewards and successes as a business owner. It’s a proven model by others that have gone before us like Printing.com who have established networks of sales offices via organisations who have been trained by them.

“We provide the process and mechanism for free and the reseller determines their own markup and generates their own revenue stream. They essentially become trade partners and their expansion will drive our expansion.”

Haybrooke was launched in 2006 and has 10 employees.