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| Saturday, 01 November 2008 13:14 |
Friends in High Places“Our focus will be on the grand-format, high-end equipment because that’s where our considerable skill and expertise resides.”“We are activators in the market, we want to help customers in our sector to acquire these high-end machines, and we will give them a whole range of options to make acquisition a realistic possibility.” There are many high points on the B&P time-line, and this year is no exception. Back in the summer the company announced a management buyout putting at the helm two experienced and well-known players in the market ¬–– Andrew Wilson, former Sales Director at the company, and Lorraine Whitburn, former MD of PrintMAX. And it is under this new regime, that the company is now able to announce details of a new highly significant partnership with industry-heavy-weight Hewlett-Packard (HP) that it believes is set to redefine once again, the state of play with the wide-format market. The partnership with HP is pretty unique in that it means that B&P Lightbrigade will be selling the entire range of HP wide-format machines from entry-level aqueous printers all the way up to the grand-format machines including NUR and Scitex machines direct to customers. “Our partnership with HP is very exciting and highly significant,” says Lorraine Whitburn joint MD, B&P Lightbrigade. “We have an agreement to sell the entire range of HP wide-format equipment, but we know our focus will be on the grand-format, high-end equipment because that’s where our considerable skill and expertise resides.” With any partnership, the benefits of the union have to be beneficial to both parties to make the union work. For HP the advantages of partnering with the Chertsey-based B&P lies in the fact that the latter has a considerable existing customer base in the signage market. It also has the expertise and an established infrastructure to service and support its sales that includes proven methods of financing. “In the current economic climate, one of the issues is how do we make it possible for customers to take ownership of high-end machines?” says Lorraine Whitburn. “We believe that those customers who are bold and confident will win the day, and we have a whole range of realistic and viable financing packages on offer that will help customers acquire the next step equipment that they need in order to continue to grow their businesses successfully. “We have a full range of credit clear options available from standard leasing through to Asset Funding. The point is we are activators in the market, we want to help customers in our sector to acquire these high-end machines, and we will give them a whole range of options to make acquisition a realistic possibility.” Providing the ways and means of getting machines into the market obviously makes B&P an attractive proposition, but in addition to this, what B&P can also bring to the party is a large engineering resource. B&P currently has 28 field engineers working nationally who are responsible for installation and post-sales service. They also carry out training at customer sites, although in addition to this, customers are also able to put machines through their paces during the output of real-life jobs at the company’s production facility for the trade in Chertsey where it produces Exhibition Graphics, Outdoor Advertising Graphics, Point of Sale and Display Systems. Says Lorraine Whitburn: “B&P is a unique business model, not only do we supply machines and consumables to the market, we also operate a 24/7 trade-only production facility, and so we are well-placed to talk to customers about how to make money, how to make a Return on Investment, all those things that you need answers to when you’re investing in high-end equipment. By the very fact that we too, are faced with the same situations means that we offer our customers something very valuable that really can’t be underestimated, and that is confidence.” In addition to hardware, B&P also has a thriving consumables business. Unusually for this day and age perhaps, it carries stock housed in warehouse facilities in Manchester and Chertsey. Inks and substrates ordered are shipped the same day. So what is B&P getting out of this new found union? “For us, working with such a major player in the wide-format arena continues our association with market leaders,” says Lorraine Whitburn. “Now with the HP arsenal of high-end machines, we can now offer a multi-option upgrade path to both new and existing customers.” This new partnership between HP and B&P characterises both the new management now in place at the company as well as the wider changes going on in the digital wide-format market place. “In the old days,” says Andrew Wilson, “the B&P model was about taking OEM printers and improving them. However, as technology got better and came of age that model became outdated. “Our model of doing things now is quite different. We have a huge amount of expertise here, and with this we can really advise on applications, on materials. It’s no longer about supporting the technology itself, these days it’s much about advising what you can actually do with it. “I know that for many people investing in equipment it’s about future proofing. The machine they buy today will be different from the machine they will need in three years time. When they need to upgrade, we will be there offering them all the transitional support and help they need. “At the end of the day we are in touch with the real world. We know what the concerns of the wide-format community are, because we are out there working with them every day.” 
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