PRODUCTION PRINT DIRECT
Direct and to the point Production Print Direct has recently celebrated a decade in business and is going from strength to strength as the company stays at the cutting edge of a changing commercial print sector.
A decade in business is something to be celebrated. About one in five businesses in the UK fail within the first year, with 60% going to the wall before they reach three years. Add in a changing commercial print sector, and to make it to 10 years is notable – and that is what Burnley-based Production Print Direct has achieved. But Mike Ashforth, managing director of Production Print Direct, is not content with that – he is now looking forward to the next decade for the business. The genesis of Production Print Direct came, as many business ideas do, when Mike spotted a gap in the market. He had already had a long career in the production print sector, including spending many years working for Konica Minolta, where he rose to become regional manager of the production team in the north, before moving on to Ricoh. But his move into running his own business came when he spotted a gap in the market for a rental model. “I realised that there was a gap for somebody independent of manufacturers to take the service approach,” he says. “It was at the end of the credit crunch era that we saw the potential to develop a rental model first, which allowed printers that couldn’t get access to finance of £20-50,000 needed to acquire machines to dip their toes in the water with a production device on a usage only basis,” he explains. That was the catalyst for setting up Production Print Direct in 2013. While moving
from being a sales manager to managing director of your own business can be quite a jump, Mike says it was one he was prepared for. “I had built up a good reputation with customers within the industry and had contacts with a lot of people across the much wider industry within HP, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Canon and beyond,” he says. “I saw some of the mistakes that were being made by others in the sector, which then allowed us to create this niche business.” The business quickly evolved from a rental to a sales and service model. “Most people in the channel tend to have some production capability on the back of their photocopier or managed print service business, whereas we did it the other way around. We’re probably about 96% production. That’s given us a niche that so far hasn’t been copied.” Mike adds that some businesses in the channel shy away from the commercial print side of the sector. “Commercial printers are seen by some as difficult to understand and difficult to please. And to be fair, if that’s not your niche, you’re right. Commercial printers have a different set of challenges and not being familiar with those challenges will just end up costing a lot of time, money and frustration. But because we’ve gone down a dedicated route, that’s what we’re used to. It’s much less of a challenge for us to operate on that basis.” Mike says that printers in, for example, a firm of solicitors will be printing consistently the same sorts of documents, and it is easier to provide what they need on a daily, monthly and annual basis. “Whereas commercial print might be swapping the media 12 times a day on the same device,” he says. “It may require slightly different setups for everything and then if there is an issue, they need someone who can understand the cause and maybe give advice over the phone or through a visit. “When we moved to more of a sales and service business, we found an appetite for small and medium-sized businesses that were looking to sort of divest out of litho because the volumes just weren’t there. So
Mike Ashforth
ppdirect.co.uk
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Most people
in the channel tend to have some production capability on the back of their photocopier or managed print service business, whereas we did it the other way around. We’re probably
about 96% production.
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