Digital Plus

How Chris Stringwell and Owen Russell are putting the ‘plus’ into wide-format digital print, a market they first entered 18 years ago.

2013 is a coming of age for digital print partners Chris Stringwell and Owen Russell. The pair, who now run Digital Plus in Leeds, first met at a company called Warrens Imaging in the city 30 years ago, before moving on to Catalyst Digital in the centre of Leeds where they, with two others, set up a large-format print department 18 years ago.

“At this point the company was mostly handling small format repro but they saw digital print coming and wanted a slice of the action,” reminisces Stringwell, who at that time worked on the sales side of things, while Russell was in print production. “We bought two 60in Encad inkjet machines and an electrostatic printer, which opened our eyes to the potential of large-format output,” continues Stringwell. “12 months later we left and set up Vision Imaging, also in Leeds, where for the first time we were directors and shareholders. We had knowledge and know-how by this point and our intention right from the off was to be a supplier of wide-format print. I just wanted to make a living, but Owen was, and is, the visionary. Since then he’s had what I might consider odd ideas, but he’s usually proved right when it comes to seeing what’s about to happen in the market and how we should position ourselves.”

The comment sets Russell grinning. “We were trying to think differently then and we’re trying to think differently now,” he says. “The short-run poster and pop-up market is becoming increasingly difficult – people are buying template-based basic products online – so we’ve made it our business to work with blue chip companies, who are more difficult to acquire but provide value business, and to seek out new markets where we can make an impact.”

Printing specialised products, especially directly onto flat-pack furniture has proved a particularly successful venture for Digital Plus, now accounting for around five percent of its turnover, which the pair estimate will reach about £2m this year.

The company was formed in 1999 by Stringwell and Russell after an internal disagreement at Vision Imaging left them free to move on. The result was a print operation based in the Bramley Industrial Estate in Leeds, where the pair started off with two 54in Xerox inkjet printers, Canon CLC500 laser copier and A3 scanner. But it wasn’t long before ambition led to expansion in terms of location, staff and kit.

“We could see that there was real growth opportunity, but I don’t think it’s healthy to wear too many hats because it becomes impossible to concentrate on how you structure the company to move it forward,” says Russell. “So, about two years in, we employed our first production person, then somebody in admin, slowly adding more production people and then acquiring adjoining premises so we could begin to take in our own finishing because we were missing out on margin by sending it elsewhere.”

Enter a Mutoh Albatross 54in solvent machine, which Russell concedes “was very, very slow but enabled us to get more involved in exterior work. “That was the real start of investment in kit for us,” says Stringwell. In the first 12 months Digital Plus turned over about £250,000 – all print at that point – and we made a profit. That incentivised us so we moved into finishing kit but it was on the printing side that we saw technology could really make a huge difference to what we did.”

And a secondhand Zund 215C flatbed printer certainly did that. “We got the flatbed after asking around to see if we could get anything cheaper than a brand new one, difficult then because they were still so new really, but luckily we came across the Zund,” remembers Stringwell, who with Russell then reel off a catalogue of further kit purchases including a 54in Grenadier, HP 5500s, Roland 742XJ etc.

But it was the flatbed technology that really caught their imagination, because as Russell points out: “it allowed us to print on bigger sizes on different substrates and opened new markets for us. Plus, not having to mount or laminate meant better workflow and more profit in the work we could produce.” “And it meant that clients got a better product for less money, so it benefitted everybody,” adds Stringwell.

The Zund flatbed had required Digital Plus to grow its operational space by adding a mezzanine floor so room could be made for the machine on the ground floor. “But space was still tight and we wanted to add finishing so when the unit next door became available we took it,” he explains. “That more than doubled our space.”

By this time the company was turning over in the region of £800,000 – £900,000 and had a staff of ten. Between then and now, it has seen the Zund flatbed replaced with an Oce Arizona 250GT, then the replacing of that with the 350XT before buying another 250GT to run alongside its bigger brother.

“When we had the first 250GT as a replacement to the Zund we struggled with size so the salesman took us to Venlo to see the 350XT and we loved it – we were the first in the UK to get it, trading in the 250GT. But down the line we needed the extra capacity again so bought another 250GT!” laughs Stringwell.

In his words, in September 2011 Digital Plus “went posh”, moving into a 975mm2 (10,500sq ft) purpose built office and production facility about a mile and a half from the original premises. “It had been part of our longer term plan to own our own premises and we needed more space to develop so it made sense,” he explains, noting the swift investment in a 3 x 2m Zund cutter.

Investment also came in the shape of people. “We  had our best year ever in 2008/9 at the very start of the recession,” says Stringwell. “At that time our goal was   for a £3m turnover. By the time we moved in 2011 things were flattening out and in 2013 we’re expecting it to     be around the £2m mark. But we’ve invested in sales  and marketing, including bringing in Simon Porter as sales and marketing director to bring in more new business,” he enthuses. “We’re focused on finding more lucrative markets.”

“We are learning that introducing new products can really grow your margin and lessen your dependence on reducing cost products,” adds Russell. “The technology is there. The question is how do you get to new markets with the new products you can produce? You have to offer something different and then spend time and effort on really selling that product. You have to invest in the story.”

He says the company is now “looking for a printer with more speed and white application”. Who knows, by the time you read this just such a machine may have been ordered by a the Digital Pus duo that have proved they put their money where their hunches are.