Rocket growth drives people and kit spend

Exhibition and event project management specialist Rocket plans to further expand its salesforce this year to aid expansion following a 17% turnover growth in 2014.

The Watford-based firm's total investments last year reached around £750,000 and it reported a year-on-year growth in turnover of 17% for 2014, with profits also reportedly in line with expectations.

Over the past 12 months the business has bought an EFI Vutek GS5000r and a third Mimaki JV33-160 and installed Caldera’s Flow+ 2.0 wide-format workflow system.

It has also recently taken on additional staff and increased its working schedule to include double-day shift hours to accommodate extra work and aid further development in the exhibition, retail, event and interior market sectors.

Furthermore, the business has recently completed an internal mezzanine extension, which has provided an extra 465sqm of space to its 1,161sqm premises.

“2014 was an excellent year for us, and we want to underline our intentions to grow and expand the business further in 2015 with the recruitment of additional sales staff to take us forward,” said commercial director Antony Rider.

“The addition of the new sales staff will help develop the business and hopefully take us into new areas of growth.”

The firm is also planning to invest in further new equipment later this year, including an additional 3.2m-wide EFI Vutek QS.

Rocket, which now has a turnover in the region of £6m, currently employs 42 staff. It produces a wide range of large-format digital production of branding and signage for customers including agencies, end-users and trade sector clients.

A large part of its clientele is agency based, with around 30% of its turnover coming from the project management and installation side, an area where it has also invested in both staff and training.