Sponsored feature: This year Harrier introduced a trade services operation based on its seven HP Indigo digital presses. The idea is that printers who are considering a move into digital can use this as a bridge to build up their business first.
Are you convinced that your future is digital, but perhaps not in today’s climate? Want to dip your toe in the water but not sure if the business will justify it? Fancy moving up the scale to a higher quality production press, but need to build up your client base first? Take heart: Harrier is offering a hand up, to turn what could be a vicious circle into a virtuous one.
The large digital print company is offering spare capacity on its seven HP Indigo digital presses and range of finishing equipment as a trade service to other printers. It calls it ‘virtual print and finishing.’
Julian Marsh.
‘If you are thinking of putting a digital press in for the first time, stop!’ says Julian Marsh, the company’s commercial business development & photo products consultant. ‘You can use Harrier while you build up your business enough to justify installing your own.’
Based in Newton Abott, Devon, Harrier is already well known as one of the UK’s largest consumer photo products printers, handling thousands of jobs every day for its own Truprint brand as for some major retail names’ photo services, such as HP Snapfish, Tesco and Hallmark. This photo business is still growing rapidly. Turnover was £17 million last year and Mr Marsh says it expects it to be ‘in the low £20 millions’ in the coming year.
It’s not short of work then. So why offer the trade service? Mr Marsh says it’s because of the ups and downs. ‘The photo work is very seasonal. We get a lot of business out of calendars, for instance, but most of that comes in towards the end of the year, November and December. ‘Harrier offers very fast turnarounds on photo products, some go out within hours of orders being received. We’ve got to have a great deal of production capacity to cope with peak demands, but a lot of the time we’ve got plenty to spare.’
So the idea of offering trade services was developed and worked up last year, going live in 2012. The idea is that trade customers get the benefits of Harrier’s huge investment in production kit, experience, efficient workflows and nationwide fast despatch. Meanwhile Harrier benefits because it can use the trade work to smooth out troughs between the peaks in its demand.
Does that mean that trade customers might lose out in the busy times? Not at all, says Mr Marsh: ‘Even November and December we will be allocating one eight hour shift per day for trade and commercial work. Our operations director says that there will be no shortage of production capacity, even during the busiest periods.’
24/6 availability
The company operates 24 hours a day, six days per week, and it has resilience and redundancy throughout the whole manufacturing business, so it can offer quick turnarounds, he says.
Harrier pitches its trade service as a ‘virtual press’ for other printers who don’t need to buy their own digital equipment right away. ‘It costs maybe £400,000 for an HP Indigo 7000,’ Mr Marsh points out. ‘So you’ve got finance repayments, then the maintenance contract and the cost of the operator. You’ll probably also need to upgrade your pre-press and put in new finishing units that can handle short runs. HP charges click rates that depend on the volume of work you’re putting through. We get good rates because we’ve got such high throughput.
‘So we can offer keen prices to trade customers who won’t have to worry about any of the other costs. And if they have a quiet month they don’t have repayments and labour costs to worry about.’
Although Harrier is already taking trade orders online though its main website, it’s in the process of setting up a dedicated trade service web to print portal system at
www.myvirtualpress.co.uk. This will start operations in the autumn.
The trade portal will be based on Tharstern’s new e4print Pro web to print
system and will link into Harrier’s existing Tharstern PRIMO MIS and Kodak Prinergy
workflow. ‘This will offer instant quotations, ordering, file uploads, flight-checking, soft proofs, approvals and job status information,’ says Mr Marsh. ‘Files will come in and be processed automatically, so the first time we’ll see them is when they’re on the press. We’ve got seven or eight people dedicated to administering the service.’
The www.myvirtualpress.co.uk URL is live already, but until the new system is running it will pass you to the main Harrier site, at www.harrierllc.co.uk. You can access the trade services and instant pricing by clicking on the Commercial Print menu.
What’s on offer?
Harrier not only has state-of-the-art digital presses but also just about every type of finishing process you could ask for, including flood UV varnishing, laminating, trimming, creasing, folding, perforating, saddle stitching, wire-o binding, perfect binding, PUR binding, hard case cover making and casing-in. Harrier’s equipment is industrial enough to handle long runs as well as short.
Also on offer is full variable data processing, allowing for even the most complex jobs to be tackled.
The main presses used for trade work are six high capacity HP Indigo 7000s, plus a 5000. Harrier has developed bespoke software for its photo operations. Trade workflow will be handled by Kodak Prinergy with InSite web portal software integrated to Tharstern with bespoke JDF/JMF software.
The company also produces a wide range of photo products, including mugs, canvas and silver halide prints, which are available commercially.
‘First and foremost this is a confidential, trade-only, service and only available to genuine trade buyers,’ Mr Marsh stresses. ‘Customers currently include litho printing companies, small digital printing companies, print brokers, print management companies and copy shops.’
Although Harrier’s photo business is a mix of B2B2C and B2C, Mr Marsh stresses that it doesn’t take on commercial work other than through the trade service, so there is no conflict of interest. ‘We have no sales reps out competing with our trade customers,’ he says.
Harrier has very substantial production capacity so can handle even the largest digital jobs in the shortest times, while it’s 24/6 operations let it offer fast deliveries, he points out. ‘The company is financially very stable too, so there is no risk in building a relationship. Furthermore the company is committed to investing in the latest technology in order to deliver the best solutions to customers.
‘Ease of use, availability, and accessibility to accurate information are the three key areas that Harrier has looked to deliver. Combined with Indigo quality, fast turnarounds and very competitive pricing, we think it’s an unbeatable offer!’ he concludes. ‘Anyone can contact us for relevant case studies and to find out how the UK’s largest Indigo production facility can help them break in to digital with minimal investment and risk.
Customer experience: Quality Print
Quality Print is an established Manchester litho printer, turning over just under £2 million per year, with a pre-tax profit of 6%, employing 18.
‘Digital is clearly the future’ says managing director Dave Bennett, ‘but I am completely stuck as to how to get to the future! Once I started looking into going digital the costs just kept rising. The digital press itself, an air-conditioned environment for the press, new pre-press and workflow, specialist finishing equipment, and training. The list seemed endless.
‘Added to which if I buy a low-cost press then productivity is low and click charges are high, but a high-end press means jumping in with both feet rather than dipping a toe. When I did the maths we would have been spending out at over £20,000 a month – you need a lot of digital work coming in to cover that level of investment.’
Harrier was approached to provide a ramp-up service, allowing Quality Print to test the market to help decide what level to invest at. ‘Since starting with Harrier we have not looked back,’ Mr Bennett says. ‘We now generate digital sales of over £20,000 a month. We benefit from the top quality equipment Harrier has without making any production investment ourselves. Our customers are delighted with the service offered, and if they are happy so am I!’
Contact: www.myvirtualpress.com
