The Aussies are coming!

Written by Colin Gillman | 19 October 2011

Did you know that UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) in Australia helped more than 40 Australian companies to successfully establish themselves in the UK last year and some 1000 Australian companies are already set up and doing business here?

I didn’t know that either until I picked up a story on Twitter this morning that reported how an Australian wide format printer, Brilliant Prints, had recently set up a new factory in Basildon, Essex for its printed canvas business in the UK. 

The company, which already has an operation in Singapore, was able to set up here with help and support from the UKTI in Australia who, in conjunction with the British High Commission in Canberra, has just launched a Go UK business competition where three Australian winners and one New Zealand winner will get return business class flights to the UK provided by British Airways as part of a business-support package worth $25,000 to help make sure their UK business will be a success. They will be given access to meetings with potential business partners, client contacts, business networks, a free limited company, business services, and ongoing UKTI support to expand into Europe, and then the world.

None of this is surprising if you consider that the UK is one of the easiest places in Europe to do business and, as with the United States, has one of the least barriers to entrepreneurship in the world. Just as Australia can be a gateway to Asia, the UK is regarded by the Australians to be the obvious gateway to Europe and a combined population of around 500 million people. But printing? There are plenty of big Aussie companies currently doing well in the UK such as Macquarie, Westfield, BHP Billiton and so forth, but it would seem that smaller Australian SME’s are starting to see the UK as a good business investment too, and rightly so.

I think it also goes to show that certain sectors of the UK printing industry such as wide format, labels and packaging are experiencing some semblance of growth, at least in wide format where sales of entry level inkjets and high end systems have seemingly picked up of late. Gareth just posted an interesting story in his Printing World section about how St Ives has invested in a couple of new Inca Onset S70’s to boost its display printing division, and I saw a YouTube video this week of a Vutek GS5000R being delivered into Spencer Signs in Hull. On top of that I was sitting with a distributor last week whose telephone was almost ringing off the hook with inquires for top end (£350k) wide format solutions, so there seems to be plenty of hardware movement going on at present.

The entry level is also growing, particularly for Roland who tell me they are gaining significant share in graphic arts among the commercial litho/digital printing sector. It’s the middle portion of the triangle with the circa £60,000 entry level flatbeds that doesn’t seem to be moving as fast, which is surprising given the quality of product on offer from manufacturers. However, I think we can expect this sector to be bolstered by the 2013 FESPA show in London and Ipex the following year, with both shows being held at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands. I am predicting that Ipex 2014 will be chock full of every conceivable type of wide format printing kit on display to eager printers looking to step up to increased productivity and a broader range of products to offer to their customer base.

With this in mind I reckon there has never been a better time to be thinking of getting into wide format printing, especially when you can do so for the price of a small family run about as demonstrated by Aussie print company Brilliant Prints UK who, upon arrival from Australia, set about investing in a small fleet of Epson 11880 machines.

Therefore hats off to the UKTI in Australia and New Zealand for promoting Britain as such a fantastic place to do business and to Brilliant Prints for recognising an opportunity to develop its wide format print offering into the UK.

Colin Gillman
colin@graphicdisplayworld.com