Home: September - October 2006 › Professional communications
Professional communications
31/10/2006 | Channel: Business, Information Technology
The Baird Group brings real benefits for customers in the field of business communications
Founded in 1862, The Baird Group is committed to the continual development of new print and communication services. With over 100 years of experience in the industry, the company provides its customers with end-to-end publishing capability in printed and electronic communications. The business offers a rare combination of services including, print management, document logistics, publishing and writing services. The Baird Group is made up of four companies, Blackstaff Press, CDS, Newspress and Thanet Press. Each company functions as a completely self regulating entity, reporting to the groups board on company performance, strategic planning issues and major capital investment developments. The Baird Group has around 500 employees with a turnover of approximately £29 million.
In recent years the company has seen a change in demand for the type of publishing required by its customers. Technological developments have changed the way people like to view material with ink on paper being overshadowed by new media. Nowadays there are all sorts of ways to provide published information. The acquisition of CDS back in 2002 was The Baird Group's first step in this direction. "Over the past five years the business has gone from an entire print company to now providing mainly professional communication services," explains Roy Bailie, chairman of The Baird Group.
Purely professional
The recent sale of W & G Baird Ltd and the acquisition of Newspress took the company even closer to becoming a purely professional service. Newspress assists the UK's top automotive PR departments and consultancies with its media communication requirements. The company has a good reputation for attention to detail with rapid turn around times for jobs. Newspress now works for most of the UK's manufacturers and importers providing them with the latest forms of print. CD-ROMs are a good example of what Newspress has to offer. Newspress provides its customers with CD-ROMs to complement on-line and printed media. A single CD can accommodate all the text you could ever write about a product in as many languages as you want, along with up to 300 top quality images or video footage. With services like this available it is obvious why customers are choosing this over original printed material. The Baird Group has recognised this demand and is accommodating its customers needs by providing them with the professional services they require.
Moving into the professional services industry has also broadened the company's market. The market conditions for these services are fairly strong at the moment: "As far as the professional services side is concerned it's reasonably buoyant," Roy explains. The main challenge the company is facing currently is the time it takes to secure a contract: "The difficulty within that market is the long time between starting an enquiry off and putting it to bed," Roy continues. "As you can imagine with 12 people working towards winning a contract, it's great when you do win but you don't get any prizes for coming second and by that time you've already invested the money in trying to win the bid, but that's just the nature of the business," Roy adds.
One of The Baird Group's companies CDS has recently been successful in securing a contract for the supply of lithographic print services to several local authorities in Essex. CDS, along with three other companies, will supply print to Southend Borough, Chelmsford Borough, Castle Point Borough and Rochford District councils. The company believes it won the contract due to its outstanding track record. Customers will benefit from state-ofthe-art technology, high quality products and seamless, professional, end-to-end project anagement. This contract strengthens the company's position as a leading print management and business communications company. "The client obviously likes the solution that we've come up with in terms of quality, price and ingenuity. At the end of the day the whole object of this is to provide the client with cost savings and to provide the company with a reasonable margin," Roy comments.
Competitive edge
The Baird Group as a whole has a solid reputation for working with its customers to make sure they get exactly what they need, this is another reason why CDS has the edge over its competitors. "When we're responding to requests from our clients they're not always sure what they want. They know they have a problem but they're not really sure what the problem is. On a number of occasions when we get in front of them we come up with an entirely different solution to what they asked for. This happens quite often and turns out to be very valuable both to the client and to us," Roy adds.
Full knowledge
The Baird Group believes that the secret to its success lies within the people in the company. It invests around three per cent of its annual turnover in training its employees to make sure they are fully knowledgeable and experienced to perform their jobs to the highest standard. Training at the company is ongoing and the company provides both on-the-job training and training courses. This training has become more important recently as the company concentrates on professional communication services, there is now more technological aspects to the work the company performs. "It's a big cliché but essentially now that we're moving out of ink on paper it's really about the quality of individuals, the quality of the people," Roy comments.
Looking to the future The Baird Group intends to carry on growing, both through acquisition and organically. "We would like over the next five years to double the size of the company in the professional services field and to totally exit printing. We would have moved in five years from an entirely print company to an entirely professional services company, that's a major change and ,we would like to continue with that strategy," Roy concludes.
In recent years the company has seen a change in demand for the type of publishing required by its customers. Technological developments have changed the way people like to view material with ink on paper being overshadowed by new media. Nowadays there are all sorts of ways to provide published information. The acquisition of CDS back in 2002 was The Baird Group's first step in this direction. "Over the past five years the business has gone from an entire print company to now providing mainly professional communication services," explains Roy Bailie, chairman of The Baird Group.
Purely professional
The recent sale of W & G Baird Ltd and the acquisition of Newspress took the company even closer to becoming a purely professional service. Newspress assists the UK's top automotive PR departments and consultancies with its media communication requirements. The company has a good reputation for attention to detail with rapid turn around times for jobs. Newspress now works for most of the UK's manufacturers and importers providing them with the latest forms of print. CD-ROMs are a good example of what Newspress has to offer. Newspress provides its customers with CD-ROMs to complement on-line and printed media. A single CD can accommodate all the text you could ever write about a product in as many languages as you want, along with up to 300 top quality images or video footage. With services like this available it is obvious why customers are choosing this over original printed material. The Baird Group has recognised this demand and is accommodating its customers needs by providing them with the professional services they require.
Moving into the professional services industry has also broadened the company's market. The market conditions for these services are fairly strong at the moment: "As far as the professional services side is concerned it's reasonably buoyant," Roy explains. The main challenge the company is facing currently is the time it takes to secure a contract: "The difficulty within that market is the long time between starting an enquiry off and putting it to bed," Roy continues. "As you can imagine with 12 people working towards winning a contract, it's great when you do win but you don't get any prizes for coming second and by that time you've already invested the money in trying to win the bid, but that's just the nature of the business," Roy adds.
One of The Baird Group's companies CDS has recently been successful in securing a contract for the supply of lithographic print services to several local authorities in Essex. CDS, along with three other companies, will supply print to Southend Borough, Chelmsford Borough, Castle Point Borough and Rochford District councils. The company believes it won the contract due to its outstanding track record. Customers will benefit from state-ofthe-art technology, high quality products and seamless, professional, end-to-end project anagement. This contract strengthens the company's position as a leading print management and business communications company. "The client obviously likes the solution that we've come up with in terms of quality, price and ingenuity. At the end of the day the whole object of this is to provide the client with cost savings and to provide the company with a reasonable margin," Roy comments.
Competitive edge
The Baird Group as a whole has a solid reputation for working with its customers to make sure they get exactly what they need, this is another reason why CDS has the edge over its competitors. "When we're responding to requests from our clients they're not always sure what they want. They know they have a problem but they're not really sure what the problem is. On a number of occasions when we get in front of them we come up with an entirely different solution to what they asked for. This happens quite often and turns out to be very valuable both to the client and to us," Roy adds.
Full knowledge
The Baird Group believes that the secret to its success lies within the people in the company. It invests around three per cent of its annual turnover in training its employees to make sure they are fully knowledgeable and experienced to perform their jobs to the highest standard. Training at the company is ongoing and the company provides both on-the-job training and training courses. This training has become more important recently as the company concentrates on professional communication services, there is now more technological aspects to the work the company performs. "It's a big cliché but essentially now that we're moving out of ink on paper it's really about the quality of individuals, the quality of the people," Roy comments.
Looking to the future The Baird Group intends to carry on growing, both through acquisition and organically. "We would like over the next five years to double the size of the company in the professional services field and to totally exit printing. We would have moved in five years from an entirely print company to an entirely professional services company, that's a major change and ,we would like to continue with that strategy," Roy concludes.
