Duncan Parker, who also heads office supplies and office hardware firms Inter County Office Supplies and Parkwood Document Solutions, as well as a wholesale paper supplies company, was a regular supplier to the Southampton Minuteman franchise when he saw that the branch was on the market earlier this year.
“We had two options, possibly lose them as a customer or buy it as a business to complement our other businesses, so we bought,” explained Parker. The acquisition, including the circa-£22,000 franchise fee, was self-funded, which Parker said was a must.
“We’ve never been involved in promotional printing but with our stationery products, office supplies and wholesale paper products there is a great synergy and that’s what we want to build on,” he added.
Whilst intensive training from Minuteman’s New York headquarters had to take place via Zoom calls, Parker said the company offered substantial ongoing support through its regional manager and local area rep who are available day-to-day.
“The hands-on training we’ve had from them has been fantastic and they’ve made sure we know how to get the most out of what we have, and coupled with the extensive software training we have been able to hit the ground running.”
Since taking over, Parker has replaced the store’s ageing Xerox Versant 80 with a new Versant 280 and a Sharp digital device for backup, while an HP DesignJet has replaced two ageing wide-format devices. Existing finishing kit has been retained, he said.
“Being part of a franchise means we’re part of a much larger organisation and it means we can call on the larger franchisees to do some of the work that we can’t physically do,” Parker added.
The Southampton team consists of three full-time and one part-time member of staff, including Parker, with the new management taking on a trainee as well as offering a student work experience opportunity.
“I hope we have added some improvements to the former operation,” said Parker. “All staff have stayed the same apart from our new trainee, so customers know the staff well, which is great. We couldn’t have taken this business on if the staff hadn’t stayed. It’s something that was very important to us from day one,” he added.
As for the road ahead, Parker said he aims to grow turnover from £180,000, when he took it over, to £300,000 in the short-term with ambitions to double that within three to five years.
He added: “If our growth will allow us, we would like to look for other acquisitions in perhaps 18 months’ time, to see what else is out there that would complement our businesses.”
“We aren’t here to become millionaires, we want to do an honest day’s work, we enjoy what we do and we hope our customers will see that too.”
Image shows (back L-R) production manager Colette Nugent and director Duncan Parker and (front L-R) production/design Steve Underwood and trainee designer/production Luke Fullerton.
