help us with that and we’ll probably start looking for some opportunities for that next year.” In addition to launching lots of new products, Solopress will also be offering new software opportunities for customers to connect with the company. One such example is the development of an API which is currently in motion. “We believe this new opportunity for larger customers to integrate with us will be a great success,” Cooper says, adding: “With our strong growth ambitions and the new headroom that we have because of the new technology we’ve invested in, we think it’s the right time to go for some volume. “This will enable us to do integrations with big print managers that perhaps have significant volumes but don’t want to be passing orders through in a manual way.” Once this has launched, there will be three ways that resellers can engage with Solopress. One could be through direct integration through an API, one could be through an account manager, and the other would be the conventional way through the website. “It’s just continuous evolution and improvement. We’re relentless I suppose, and step by step, hopefully getting it right for our customers and therefore they return and we have a growing business,” Cooper concludes. Cooper echoes this: “The net result is that I think we’ve got the right formula. We’ve added lots of products this year and we’ve been pushing really hard to get more products in the range. We’ve added a search feature on the website to enable customers to find the things they’re looking for. Last year we actually upgraded the website and really improved the speed and performance of it.” Ambitious growth plans With the addition of Site 4 creating more headroom for Solopress, the company has very ambitious growth plans from a revenue standpoint. Cooper explains how the plan is to grow by 15% in 2023 with the company estimating it is probably already in a position to do this. However, if successful with that growth, the company will be looking for more capacity in 2024. The new site has enough room for another eight-colour B1 press alongside the new B1 ten-colour so Cooper says this is likely a move that the company would look to do sometime in 2024. There is also a unit adjacent to the current unit that the company could take extra space from and Cooper says he would look at putting some of the The new Site 4 has room to add more capacity as the company continues to grow finishing here as well as a couple of B1 presses, retaining one of the B2 presses, and selling one of the older ones. “One of the challenges we have here is that we’re a multi-site business,” Cooper says. “What we’ve been able to do with Site 4 is have a really closed loop production cycle so we’ve got white paper in and finished goods out. In other parts of the business, we have to move printed goods to a finishing hall. But as we expand Site 4, we’ll be able to do more under one roof and it just improves the efficiency again.” Looking forward and Cooper has a very clear set of goals for the business. Immediately, he says the company will weather the storm that’s remained from 2022 although he says the team is feeling fairly optimistic that the planned growth will be achievable. Over the next five years, the company has much more ambitious plans to double the size of the business from a revenue point of view. Solopress ended 2022 on £32m and plans to be above £60m in five years’ time. “Half of that will be achieved organically,” Cooper explains. “We’d like to move into new product areas like packaging or new vertical markets like publishing, but in addition to this, there will need to be acquisitions too. We have a specialist in the group that’s going to 31 January / February 2023
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