January / February 2023 30 xxxxx Solopress weather the many storms faced and come out in a stronger position. In addition to being able to utilise the downtime caused by the Covid19 pandemic, another key part of this has been being extremely data-driven. Cooper explains how the company utilises metrics in terms of complaint rates, reprint rates, customer happiness, and so on, to gain a clear understanding of whether things are moving in the right direction – which they are! “We’ve been smarter with our marketing and are trying to track the right kind of customers now. We’re much better on the customer service side of things to make sure we’re providing the right level of customer service, and we’ve launched the Pro offering which enables us to really look after those professional print brokers and other printers and print resellers,” Cooper says. What’s clear when speaking to Cooper about how the company has continued to grow and keep offering more, is that there is no one secret tactic that’s worked. It’s been a constant flow of strategic decisions and analysis to ensure every corner of the business is working as efficiently as possible which in turn allows Solopress to offer the most to its customers. we’ve invested in perfect binding equipment, and so really the business has had quite an overhaul this year.” In terms of how a 24/6 production business logistically makes this sort of investment without causing too much disruption in the process, Cooper explains that because Solopress has a peak from September to the end of the year, it was important to add the extra capacity in time for this. Critical to this was finding a press that was available. To achieve this, the company opted for a pre-loved press from Excel Printing Machinery with the supplier able to find exactly the press Solopress was looking for in the timeframe it had. “Going with a new press would have meant we wouldn’t have had it in time to serve the demand that we had this year,” Cooper explains. “We’re really happy with the Heidelberg. The press is a beast! It’s very, very effective.” Because the investment involved expanding to a new site, the process was a smooth one as Solopress was able to set that site up and get it ready to run without disrupting normal production. This hasn’t always been the case with Cooper reflecting on past occasions where the company has taken kit in that’s involved moving something out and bringing something new in which is more challenging, especially during busier times of the year. “I think therein lies the key – we’ve typically tried to choose the time of year to do that change around where we’ve got some extra capacity because we’re not too busy. Or in the case of the inkjet investment that we made, we obviously were very quiet during Covid and so that gave us the perfect window of opportunity to shut down a few presses, refurb the room, and bring the new technology in; and also spend time learning that technology and getting competent at producing work on it.” Despite being in a position to make this continued investment, Solopress wasn’t immune to the effects of the issues highlighted. However, thanks to a series of small decisions in terms of how the business markets itself, how it services its customers, and how effective it is at producing its work, it has been able to We can help customers really uniquely set price lists on their most significant products where they’re ordering them very frequently. Or we can offer discounts across the range and it’s just a way of us providing a two-tiered approach for different kinds of customer segments 4 sites in total The new Heidelberg tencolour B1 litho press is housed in the new Site 4
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