Wide world

　　Much has been made of the wide-format boom. One the eve of the biggest wide-format show in Australia this year, printers and vendors talk to Peter Kohn about the reality of this much-hyped opportunity and how to turn a buck in the world of big print.

　　You're a commercial sheetfed or production digital printer. You're thinking about future growth. What are your options? You could boost your production capacity with a new press. You could improve efficiency by upgrading technology, perhaps your finishing or workflow software.

　　There's another option: wide-format. The margins are good. Kit is priced in tens or hundreds of thousands, not millions. The markets are growing not shrinking. But is there room for you in the wide-format sector? Can you establish a customer base. And most importantly, can you turn a dollar?

　　As one might expect, the wide-format inkjet vendors wax lyrical about the possibilities in the sector. Is there a big opportunity? Absolutely, says Roland DG marketing manager Anthony McCausland. "In fact, it is probably an ideal time as there are several new and innovative technologies available, such as metallic inks that offer small- to- medium-sized business the ability to add some unique enhancements to their product offerings. 

　　 "Many of these types of solutions are available for under $35,000. Eco-solvents, such as those used in Roland DG's 64-inch VersaCAMM VS-640, are very popular in the industrial graphic arts markets such as sign and display due to their low cost, high durability and cheap print costs per square metre - often a quarter of the cost of the aqueous inks."

　　Neil Westhof, Océ's marketing manager for wide-format, believes Australia's growing population "must lead to investment in housing and infrastructure, which, in turn, will provide concurrent opportunities for the retail sector. All of this will positively impact on the wide-format printing industry, as we cater to architectural and engineering needs for technical documentation solutions, and to digital print providers for display graphics applications such as retail POS. To those considering entry into wide-format, market research shows clear growth in customised POS, exemplified by localised campaigns and quick responses to competitor retail campaigns, driving a need for short-run digital. As a result, investment in wide-format systems that can cater to this demand is a clear business opportunity. The UV-curable flatbed systems are ideal to address this opportunity, which is why this market is growing by 24% annually," adds Westhof.

　　HP Graphics director Shane Lucas sees great potential for his company's Latex ink technology. "With new technologies come new applications, such as glass and tile printing for walls, splash backs, pools, and so on. With HP PVC-Free wallpaper, printers can print wallpaper on demand. The opportunities to build new revenue streams or enter new markets are huge."

　　Screen technical sales manager Peter Scott says wide-format is outstripping other sectors in terms of growth. "This is particularly true at the higher end where photographic, and better-than photographic, results can be achieved with higher resolution UV flatbeds, using white ink and multiple passes, such as Screen's Truepress Jet2500UV."

　　Epson Australia marketing manager Visnja Majewski sees specialty opportunities, such as inkjet printed packaging and remote proofing.

　　How to start

　　All it takes for an offset operation to expand into wide-format may be finding a niche, and some hardware and, of course, understanding a digital workflow.

　　There could also be openings in the great outdoors. The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) believes billboard, wrap, signage and street furniture printers have remained relatively insulated while the many others sectors of the economy have been buffeted by the economic storm.

　　OMA figures show out-of-home advertising has continued its strong growth, netting a 22% increase in sales in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2009. Net revenue increased to $217m in that quarter, compared with $188m in 2009. This follows on from the growth of 9% achieved in Q1, and gives a solid 15% growth for the first half of the year.

　　The association's marketing manager, Nicole Moore, tells ProPrint that while some areas such as large-format slowed down, other market segments picked up the slack. "Some members found that a number of large customers have taken the opportunity afforded by the current business climate to catch up on some long overdue re-imaging. Members say that shorter campaign cycles are welcome - more printing is good news."

　　But beyond the technology and the business basics, there has to be sizzle. The successful wide and grand-format printers ProPrint spoke to said the key to getting ahead in this sector was about more than investment - it's about making your business exceptional.

　　Smartprint Group in Queensland is an amalgamation of businesses that came together out of necessity, says managing director Garry Donpon.

　　The 14-year-old Toowoomba-based company has its roots as a graphic design house that outsourced all of its printing - offset, screen and promotional. "One of our screen print suppliers was looking to sell their business so we purchased it.

　　They specialised in general screen-print in flat sheet and garments.

　　"So the blend of businesses is quite different. Most people would expect a design house would look towards offset before screen-printing. We try and offer our clients a one-stop shop for all their printing and marketing needs, so we have grown in many directions. In the early days of large-format digital, we used to outsource all of our work as we didn't have the volume to justify our own machinery, but as we have grown, it became viable and also we needed to take control of delivery timeframes," says Donpon.

　　Smartprint Group runs a pair of Epson devices: a 44-inch BO-plus format Pro 9880 and a 64-inch GS6000 to produce its large-format work, including POS. It also prints stickers, garments, magnets and vinyl notebook and binder covers. Design and web development are part of the mix, as is a legacy of screen-printing.

　　"We originally purchased the Pro 9880 with an EFI Fiery RIP for running our film positives for our screen-printing needs, and we were able to move into POS material with this machine. Shortly after this purchase, we moved in solvent printing with the purchase of the GS6000," adds Donpon.

　　If finding a niche is critical, then eight-year-old Sublitech in St Peters, Sydney, seems to have applied the formula.

　　Managing director Peter Faill says his five-staff operation, which specialises in fabric printing for clothing, swimwear and display banners, has not felt the GFC and is confident about 2011. "When I speak to people in this sector, they all appear busy."

　　Sublitech offers design, pre-press, print and finishing for fashion clothing. It also prints large-format panelling for event signage and building wraps. A 75m-wide banner at the SCG was a monster project in 2008. It even dabbles in stretched-canvas artwork.

　　Success story

　　The business is a screen migration success story. There are no screen presses on site anymore. If any screen-printing is needed, it is outsourced, says Faill. Traditional screen-printing is an ecological drain, he finds, involving large amounts of water to expose, then de-ink the screen.

　　Sublitech runs a SubTex Fabrijet CS2000 sourced from supplier Princeton Digital Imaging. The Fabrijet, which was the first of its make and model in Australia, prints in 1,850mm format and has onboard curing. There also are two Mimaki JV4 1,600mm machines.

　　In Melbourne, 127-year-old fabric printing company Evans Evans has the distinction of being Australia's longest-serving flag maker. Designer Ivor Evans had a hand in designing the first Australian national flag prior to federation The company, with a staff of 38, now prints flags and banners for motor sport, football and turf events. It even has clients in the racing industry in the US, UK and Dubai. Premium exports makes up almost a third of its business.

　　But the company wanted to broaden its services, so three years ago it established Display Envy, offering retail signage solutions such as lightboxes and matrix frames, and the media and printed content to go with these. The operation runs a specialised sales force in Melbourne and Sydney, separate from its core flag and banner sales, and a showroom at its Collingwood headquarters. Evan Evans managing director Roger Cameron says Display Envy now contributes a fifth of the company's revenue.

　　He says the fleet is set up to print for events customers and for retailers. There are two three-metre EFI Vutek fabric printers, two Roland SolJet 645s, two HP 6100s and a Vutek flatbed for rigid media. Of its two DuPonts, one has a custom colour gamut for printing POS work.

　　Active Display Group (ADG), a 24-year-old Melbourne-based family business with almost 300 employees, has a growing army of digital customers. The demand is typically for POS displays at a 30- to 40-outlet chain, one display per outlet. That is very much a job for UV inkjet, says managing director David Gittus. But ADG has made a deliberate decision to keep its budgetary powder dry for its screen-printing operations. It recently invested in a fleet of SIAS two, three, four and five-colour UV screen presses fed by a Lüscher JetScreen plate line, producing what Gittus calls "virtually dotless" 65-85 line-screens.

　　The company has some wide-format inkjet hardware: an HP Scitex V-Jet 3x2m UV flatbed, a NUR Fresco and a Mutoh Toucan. It has some superwide HP 5500s for high-resolution foamboards for the fashion industry, and two HP Designjet 10000 eco-solvent printers for outdoor displays. But surprisingly, most of ADG's digital business is outsourced.

　　"We're still sitting on the digital fence," says Gittus. Much of the company's large-format orders are sent to several third-party printers. In today's business climate, trade pricing is favourable.

　　"Some printers hate long runs but they're keen to do this kind of low-volume work, while at ADG, the long press runs are our core activity, usually in the 200-500 sweet spot," he says.

　　ADG will also print offset on some of the smaller-format POS jobs that might stretch to a 5,000-run on its A1 Komori Lithrone press. It runs a Kodak Prinergy CTP workflow and is considering an upgrade to the vendor's processless plates. The company has what might be called an 'outsource-acquire-decentralise' strategy. It bought screen printer APG in the late 1980s, then added some pre-press, offset and digital capability through the purchase of Four Colour Digital in 2004. 

　　Acquisition trail

　　Around three years ago, ADG again broadened - buying creative agency Tap Productions, which handles design, procurement and project management for calendar events such as the Australian Open, and it took a half stake in banner specialist AFI Branding Solutions.

　　Gittus reflects that ADG's broadly arrayed facilities across Melbourne's southeast makes it a more a productive operation. Printing is done at Mulgrave, display work and mounting at Keysborough, with a logistics centre at Chelsea Heights. There is a sales office in Sydney and a sourcing office in China.

　　With the economic squeeze, some wide-format outfits have sought 'greener' pastures by offering clients an environmentally friendlier package. Omnigraphics prints exterior signage and street furniture, and managing director Nathan Sable says it has responded to an increasing demand for sustainability. "We're proud to be able to now offer our clients the option of printing their outdoor on biodegradable or recyclable material."

　　If one thing is clear about the wide-format opportunity, it's that there is no one clear path to profit. What the sector's success stories have proved is that the market is there for the taking, but also there for the making. From outdoor to fabric printing, or point-of-sale to indoor signage, the printers with the best shot at becoming leaders are those that carve out their own niche.