COMPANY
The Imaging Centre Limited
WEBSITE
www.theimagingcentre.co.uk
INDUSTRY SECTOR
Printing
NLR PROGRAMMES
Scale Up Coaching
Individual Coaching
Team Coaching
“The Imaging Centre started life as an electronic imaging company editing images for magazines, albums, books etc. but advances in technology meant a change of direction. In 2003 we purchased our first Indigo digital press and we ‘moved’ into Greeting Cards. We are now one of the leading digital print distributors in the UK for the Greeting Card Industry with two top of the range Indigo digital presses which can cater for both long and short print runs. We deal with more than 1,000 publishers, including people looking for their first samples to be produced and more established Greeting Card companies with thousands of cards to print and wrap.”
Bob Short – Founder
Printing firm successfully navigates the Pandemic and emerges even stronger and moves to bigger premises
The imaging centre was established in 1991 by Bob short and his wife Jan, supplying digital files to the printing industry. The acquisition of an indigo digital press enabled the company to begin serving the needs of Greeting Card Publishers. They have grown year on year and have become one of the recognised leading brands of digital print distributors for the Greeting Card industry worldwide.
Over the past 8 years of working with New Level Results the company have grown from a handful of staff to over 32 people over 5 departments; they have moved to larger premises twice and they have transformed the digital printing processes to such a level that they can now print up to 1,000,000 cards a week.
They have built up a reputation as one of the top greeting card printing companies in the UK through a programme of continuous improvement in the latest state of the art printing presses and client interface technology. They can produce large volumes of small individual orders from individual ‘cottage industry’ card producers which means they can supply competitively priced, beautifully printed greeting cards quickly and in quantities that suit both small and large scale card producers.
As they continued to grow, like most businesses there are growing pains and the need to develop capacity, capability and confidence and appoint a layer of leaders to free up the owners time. A core part of this strategy was to facilitate a hand-over of control and responsibility for taking the business forward, to the next generation. Their NLR coach helped them to identify the best way to restructure the business and allocate roles and responsibilities to allow a structured management handover to take place. This can be a complex process in family run businesses and can take several years to complete, hence the need for a step-by-step plan that provides clarity and enables business as usual to continue.
With a mix of coaching and mentoring the senior leadership team have delivered record years and significant investment in new presses, finishing and wrapping equipment to enhance their offering of specialist techniques, such as foiling, die cutting and embossing.
They have also had the opportunity to acquire new fit for purpose freehold premises. This was a big strategic decision that all the directors felt confident in making with the aid of their coach and the support of The Curve® Team Programme, because of the consistent monthly facilitation and regular review of their goals and objectives.
The business has since experienced significant growth, as a result of the move to new premises; restructure of the production lines; upskilling of the leadership team and more recently the development of new integrated software which allows clients to upload their print jobs directly to the printing presses.
The company has a strong vision and set of values which the directors focus on heavily to manage change and continuous improvement and enhance their reputation by providing outstanding service to their clients.
“Working with our business coach and using The Curve® to map and track our progress every month, has given me real confidence when making decisions regarding the direction of the business. I understand the power of forming a set of guiding principles to help challenge and improve business processes and people’s contribution. Holding everyone in the team accountable every month has been an essential ingredient of our success to date. We have overcome many significant challenges and having completed the hand-over of the business, we are now very well placed to dominate our marketplace.”
Adam Short – Managing Director
