ProCo boosts digital offering with £1m spend

ProCo has invested £1m in its digital offering to boost capacity by around 25% and target new applications.

The Sheffield litho, digital and cross-media communications group has signed for a HP Indigo 10000 B2 digital press.

“Clearly we’ve had the 10000 on our radar for while, we’ve always seen it as an option for us, but with any investment of this size we have to make sure it’s sustainable for the business,” said ProCo managing director Jon Bailey.

ProCo currently operates four series three Indigos across it’s Sheffield headquarters and Concept Communications, the Stansted-based marcomms print business it took a 50% stake in last year.

The seven-colour, 3,450sph 10000 will be shipped direct from Dscoop in Dublin and installed over the next few weeks once ProCo has completed it’s factory modifications.

It will replace a Indigo 7800 at ProCo, which will be moved to Concept and replace its Indigo 7000.

“Digital capacity wise the 10000 will probably give us another 25% across the group,” said Bailey.

“The team is really pumped at moment, with the press coming in and good new contracts coming on stream; we’re busy, the team’s on fire and the ProCo and Concept teams are totally allied, and the merger has worked better than we could have hoped.”

ProCo took a 50% stake in Concept Communications last October, and has since integrated the two operations’ workflows, following ProCo’s six-figure investment in Tharstern’s flagship Primo MIS platform.

“With the integration of the businesses complete and the 10000 coming I think we’ll be able to start looking at adding some different types of projects to the combined portfolio now,” said Bailey.

The combined companies have sales of around £13m and 127 staff.