Business

You’ll probably think of ithastobebrilliant.com as Brilliant Media, or just plain Brilliant, or maybe you won’t even know it at all, which is understandable as its founder Simon Tabelin has “wanted it to be the industry’s best kept secret to lend it that air of exclusivity”.

Towards the end of 2014 Barking-based Precision Printing took a controlling stake in Sunderland-based large-format PSP First2Print and became a partner in YourWalls.co.uk, a bespoke printed wallcoverings operation that that officially launched this January.

So what’s the thinking behind the move into large-format by the still privately owned, £15m turnover company led by high profile CEO Gary Peeling. I asked him!
By Lesley Simpson

A new system of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) means parents with babies due on or after 5 April 2015, will be able to take time off together or independently, to care for their child. The concept is simple but the regulations governing the new system are complex and likely to be challenging for employers to administer. Here Emma Capper,?associate at legal firm?HillHofstetter, talks you through preparations for that first request.

For those of you considering making more of foreign markets in 2015, Peter Kiddell of Fespa UK Association and the GPMA (Graphics, Print and Media Alliance) explains what help is at hand.

When it comes to staff, the adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is apt. But it’s not all about money. On the back of news that Apple and Facebook are offering to freeze eggs for female employees in an effort to attract more women, we share some of the less obvious employee reward schemes.

Callprint is on the acquisition trail, and looking for companies with large-format print and project management capability, with a turnover in excess of £3m, and with room to grow. Callprint itself, formed in 1992 as a repro and print operation, currently employs 170 staff at 20 branches and has a turnover of over £12m. Its intention is to grow sales to £25m in the next two years. I met with MD Steve Cheek to find out what part wide-format plays in this strategic development plan.
By Lesley Simpson

Octink CEO Will Tyler was once a commodity trader. Though he had what he calls ‘an epiphany’ at 20 and left that scene to join his father Tony Tyler in the sign business he’d started back in 1962 as Allsigns, being financially savvy has stood the son and heir in good stead to lead the company that he inherited on his father’s sudden death in 1994. Then it had a turnover of around £380,000. Now it’s around £15m. And that doesn’t include any income from its sales/project management offices abroad, that he expects “will dwarf what we’re doing now in terms of turnover in the next two-to three years”.

Ernesto Sirolli makes a good living coaching entrepreneurs. And whenever he meets a business leader for the first time, he says that leadership starts with four words: “Shut up and listen.” Here’s why.

When Valley Graphics in Essex saw scope to diversify into digitally printed wallcoverings it set up a sister operation with an independent identity - The Printed Wallpaper Company.

I met with founder and MD Matthew Adams-Eaton to talk about the diversification strategy. 
By Lesley Simpson

An article earlier this year looked at finishing options for rigid substrates. Now, Nessan Cleary focuses on options for finishing flexible materials.