FT Print completes the circle for managed services

When FT Print bought UDM at the end of last year, it put the finishing touch to a print management offering that can now provide a fully managed service to its clients. The Hertford and Wolverhampton based business has always been at the fore-front of managing the operational print requirements of its clients. Now they can do the same for their clients’ marketing print and communications needs.

The acquisition brought together two businesses that have known and respected each other for several years, both being founder members of the Independent Print Industries Association. Each business recognised that, whilst they both had a strong culture of working closely with its customers in its respective areas of expertise and had embraced the use of the latest IT developments to further enhance these relationships, each needed to change its business model and offering to that which can professionally manage the drive by its customers to consolidate its print supply chain and outsource its non-core business processes.

“FT’s origins and expertise is within operational print, with a very strong position in providing printed materials for the airline industry” says Ian Woolley, FT’s group sales director.

“The acquisition of UDM (currently celebrating their 25th year) provides significant expertise in the delivery of marketing campaigns including point of sale and direct marketing collateral. It also brings sales of £6 Million, taking the group’s revenues to £25 Million and has a site in Burnham near Slough employing 16 print professionals UDM will be renamed FT Burnham. This puts the FT Group in the top 20 Print Management companies within the UK and the largest privately owned. All of FT’s directors are actively involved in operations ensuring progress and responses to clients needs are not hindered by financial constraints of private investment. Our union will provide the perfect springboard to deliver a more rounded and efficient service to our client base and marketplace.

”Brian Dorkings, former director of UDM and the new director for the FT Burnham site says “UDM’s experience in the travel, retail and leisure sectors has almost no overlap with FT’s existing customer base and proposition. Clearly there is going to be significant scope to maximise the group’s combined spend leverage and its newly acquired expertise in marketing services will also bring benefits to existing and prospective client s alike.”

While the deal increases the size and the critical mass of both companies, the group focus remains one of innovation delivered with the utmost levels of customer service by print industry experts. “We have been promoting our ‘Fresh Thinking’ approach for a while, centred around our ability to offer expert consultancy and qualified experience in re-engineering production and procurement processes,” says Woolley. “We are now finding that, where clients are comfortable with using web-based ordering platforms for ordering stock or print on demand, they now require systems that allow localised marketing, campaign management and dynamic artworking to further improve time to market and reduce costs. Having been ahead of our competitors with our solutions to date, it is imperative that we continue to remain so.”

Recent investments in new software at FT will deliver another step change in process improvements, providing the extra transparency, accountability and audit trail that procurement managers and marketing managers alike are seeking.

“It is about our ability to evaluate existing processes and apply industry best practice and innovation that allows us to deliver ongoing improvements above and beyond price alone” Woolley explains. As an example he points to the impacts that the improvements in digital print and workflow is having in moving customers closer towards the utopia of printing what they need, where & when they need it, negating stock holding and reducing the risk of obsolescence. These developments in workflow and digital document management have led to the production of highly customised and tailored documents, with only the content that is relevant to the target individual being output and with fully personalised messaging. All this can be managed through FT’s web portal.

Combining the latest in technology solutions with strong marketing delivery expertise has resulted in the creation of solutions for localised marketing for the retail and leisure industries.

Where customers branches or sites would previously undertake localised marketing without the desired brand management or cost controls, FT’s tools have been developed to allow sites to create a brand approved poster, leaflet or Point of Sale item, on demand and cost effectively but, with a localised Marketing Message. This workflow also allows a centralised Marketing Team to monitor or indeed approve the messaging created at site level.

The branch is happy because the hassle associated with buying print and chasing suppliers is taken away and the corporate head office is happy because they know that the brand is not being undermined by enthusiastic but often inexperienced print buying.

This application of sound procurement processes and project management techniques has resulted in FT providing complimentary outsourced services and management.

“Where print has been outsourced, it is logical to apply this supply chain management expertise to complimentary areas within customers non core spend” Dorkings says. “The same processes of analysis, review, re-engineering and implementing change are being applied to many complimentary areas including scanning, archiving and distributions services” he explains.

FT Print has also been providing non-print products for some while now, providing uniforms for example, to outlets that need these types of products as well as the print needed to run the back of house services. Similarly UDM has included the procurement and supply of stationery and promotional products through its customised online ordering system, offering immense savings and internal efficiencies to its clients.

Now thanks to the acquisition of UDM, the FT Print Group can provide every aspect of its customers growing print, sourcing and logistics management needs.