RDI reveals investment plan following awards triumph

Real Digital International (RDI) capped a year in which it posted record profits with a triumphant return to the PrintWeek Awards on Monday night.

The Surrey-based digital printer scooped the top honour as it was named PrintWeek Company of the Year, a year after picking up a commendation in the same category.

Now managing director David Laybourne has revealed plans for a major capital investment programme that will tee up the next phase of the £16m turnover company’s growth.

"Getting the business to this stage has really just been the start of this process," said Laybourne. "It is absolutely our intention to reinvest, to keep driving the business forward and to continue to enhance the services we offer to the marketplace."

The first step in an investment strategy that will be implemented over the next two years will be the purchase of a high-speed inkjet press, due to be installed by December and fully operational by January 2013.

Laybourne was coy on the exact details of the press other than to say that it was a standard model that RDI had quite heavily specified to meet the specialist requirements of a specific market.

"What we try to do is use the best technology available and modify it to enable us to produce what the market needs," he explained.

Laybourne added that while the first stage of the investment was in inkjet, this did not mean that the firm, which has nine toner-based Xerox iGen presses, would not continue to invest in both technologies.

"In the short term, we’re investing in inkjet, but in the medium-to-long term the jury is still out," he said. "We’re fairly agnostic from a technology point of view."

Commenting on RDI’s triumph at the PrintWeek Awards 2012, Laybourne said it was "the icing on the cake" to have independent recognition of the firm’s achievements.

"Clearly we have a vision and a roadmap that our staff and our clients have all bought into but to have our peers say, yes you have got it right and you have done well makes us feel as though we’ve come of age."

Laybourne said that the firm would announce more details of its investment plan in the coming weeks.

"We have identified where we can make a difference, we have found the kit that can move forward the service offering in that sector and this installation is really just the foundation that we will continue building on," he commented.