Get big or get niche, or so the saying goes. But what about getting big and niche? Ligare, like its parent Opus Print Group, is out to prove that big and niche aren't mutually exclusive. While being part of a 400-strong Asia Pacific print group means Ligare can't call itself small, the niche moniker sticks. Specialisation – not size – is its badge of honour.
The similarities between Opus and Ligare runs deep. If you want, you could call Opus "the other" big private equity-backed print group, smaller than Geon and Blue Star but still a powerful force in the trans-Tasman printing industry. You could also call Ligare "the other" big book printer. It might not quite have the heft of McPherson's or Griffin, especially in trade paperbacks, but it is a mainstay of the professional market.
Like any printer with growth ambitions, Ligare has been forced to face up to the "get big or get niche" question – and chosen both. It is using its size and skills to stake a claim on the region's specialist print volumes in the professional, legal and educational publishing market.
Ligare's plan is to be a one-stop shop, not simply for Australia or New Zealand publishing work, but for the entire Asia-Pacific region. Opus group chief executive Cliff Brigstocke and Ligare executive chairman Richard Celarc have been putting the pieces together across the group and across the region and are ready to take the brave new Ligare out to the market.
Back story
Last year, Ligare celebrated its 30th birthday. The company was founded in 1979 as a specialist binder in Sydney ('Ligare' meaning 'to bind' in Latin). Over three decades, three staff grew to more than 100, and Ligare went from being an independent trade binder to part of Opus Print Group. Ligare (and COS Printers, but more on them later) constitute the Professional, Legal and Educational Division in its parent company's threefold offering. The Out-of-Home Division is made up of Cactus Imaging in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland and Omnigraphics New Zealand. The third piece of the puzzle is its Government Division. The most prominent of these companies is CanPrint, along with Union Offset and Canberra Mailing & Envelopes in the nation's capital.
Ligare has steadily and organically expanded over its lifetime. But now, with its powerful backers and an eye on opportunities, change is afoot.
"What this business has been doing over the past six months is getting ready for its next phase of growth," says Brigstocke. "It has continued to grow through the downturn, but it's a good time to take stock in terms of strategy, investment and people.
"We've got a range of global publishers we work with, but we haven't really been able to prosecute the sales development that we would like without the senior staff to do that," he adds.
Brigstocke's objective for Ligare is clear: to become the Asia Pacific supplier of choice for publishers from all corners of the globe. The route map is equally clear: it's a threefold plan comprising "strategy, people and investment".
It seems three is indeed a magic number at Opus. There's a notable symmetry in all this. This threefold plan is being carried out at one of the divisions of three-pronged parent Opus. And the book division is itself a gang of three. We've already met Ligare in the Sydney suburb of Riverwood, the centrepiece of the Opus book business. But more recently, the market has been introduced to two new names that make up the trio. Early this year, Opus announced that Celarc would take up residence in New Zealand to set up Ligare NZ, a greenfield firm that would mirror Ligare in Sydney.
In February, Brigstocke also announced a strategic alliance – with Singapore-based COS Printers. At the time, there was scepticism from some quarters – what was there to stop a lower-cost offshore supplier getting its hands on Ligare's client list and cutting out the middleman? But it turned out the strategy was watertight. In just a matter of months, Opus bought out COS, taking ownership of its former partner and capping off Ligare's Asia-Pacific plan.
While COS is thousands of kilometres away, the similarities between the Singapore firm and Ligare run deep, says Brigstocke. "It's almost an identical business. Sure it's in a different part of the world, but it's got the same family orientation and the same committed people in the business."
COS was founded by Alfred Ang in 1972 and employs 80 people. It exports more than half its production to customers in Europe, Britain and the US. "The founders have the same long-term view as Ligare, and they're staying, which is fantastic," adds Brigstocke.
It would be easy to pin the ambitious scale of this growth plan on Ligare's wealthy backers. But the motivation is largely from outside, not within. The global book publishing market is changing. I if a company wants to stay in the race, they need to take a new tack. In the past, publishers were more likely to produce local editions on a country-by-country basis. National managers would strike up individual deals with their country's printers. Not any more.
Ligare general manager Wayne Bywater explains: "A lot of our clients are global. The GFC hit harder in a lot of countries than it did in Australia and it has forced them to have a good look at their business worldwide and create global purchasing. This helps with our strategy in Asia."
Brigstocke adds: "We hosted a meeting with a very large global publisher at our Singapore business. They brought in people from Germany, the US, the UK and Australia, and we went up there and met with them. That's the change – they were meeting in Opus' business in Singapore, talking about a regional print group offering. This is what [our new sales and marketing manager] brings to the table, because he knows a lot of the UK guys and the German guys."
Global seller
The man in question is Carrick Wilkie, an ex-pat Brit who joined Ligare several months ago after more than a decade at some of the UK's leading printers, including historic book printer Butler & Tanner. Wilkie and Bywater are the people in Brigstocke's "strategy, people, investment" ideology. This issue of senior staffing has been a priority for some time.
"People are the glue that holds us together," says Brigstocke. "We are not going to shout about being the business that is the 'leading edge' in terms of investment – we do invest, but we're not necessarily going to invest ahead of other people. For us, it's about the skills, it's about the experience, it's about the knowledge – it's about the people that have a depth of industry experience. The key for us over the past year has been to reinvest into senior skills."
Ligare founder Richard Celarc spells it out. "I'm fussy. I really wanted the right people. If you haven't got the right people, you haven't got a chance, even with the best equipment in the world." Celarc first spoke to Wilkie at Drupa 2008, over a cup of coffee on the Heidelberg stand. Brigstocke first spoke to Wilkie at least two years ago.
"It's funny, when you meet people and you get the instinct that that person is right for you – that's how I felt about Carrick when we first met," says Brigstocke.
If Wilkie is the new kid on the block, then Bywater is from the other end of the scale. He first worked for Celarc in the 1990s as Ligare's number one printer. After leaving Ligare in September 1994 to pursue roles at a number of other print companies, he rejoined around 12 months ago. It's certainly a different market to the one he left all those years ago.
"We have seen a change in the tides in recent times in our clients' demands," says Bywater. "Our business is becoming more diverse. The traditional business of print is changing. Our customers are changing.
"We have our offset department and we have digital, which is seeing growth. In particular, print-on-demand has become part of client demands. It used to exist to some degree but with Carrick coming on board and new clients, there are more and more request on that side of things."
Again, it comes back to people. "Without the right people at the helm, you can spend as much as you like investing and make as many promises as you like, but you tend not to deliver," says Brigstocke.
So with the right people now in place, does that mean investment? The answer is up and running at 15,000 sheets per hour on the day ProPrint visits. Ligare has secured the eight-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102 that once stood on the floor of Sydney printer Beaver Press.
The new machine seriously boosts the company's offset colour capacity. It's a 2006 model, and general manager Bywater makes a point of the machine's low mileage – only 50 million impressions on the clock. "It's only just getting wound up," he adds.
To make way for the machine, Ligare is removing a number of older-model litho presses. These include a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 102 as well as a two-colour Roland 702, which is being shipped across the Tasman. Ligare's Kiwi cousins have done well out of the Riverwood upgrade.
"They're getting a lot of book value," says Bywater. "That Roland 700 they're getting – it flies."
The eight-colour investment was not taken lightly. Bywater says that Ligare has been looking for the right machine for some time. When the press came on the market, it fit the bill. The big boost to colour capacity means Ligare can stick to its in-house philosophy. "We used to outsource a lot of cover work," says Bywater. Notably, he adds that this was mostly sent out to other arms of the group – so even outsourcing was done with an in-house mentality.
The new Heidelberg will produce colour text and cover work. B&W text pages will continue roll off Ligare's fleet of three Scottish-made VariQuik web presses, which wear the badges of a heavy working life. Bywater stresses they've got plenty of life left in them yet. The VariQuiks can run paper down to 40gsm, making them ideally suited to Ligare's legal and academic publishing clients.
History lesson
Walking from its sheetfed warehouse through the factory that houses its web presses and on to its digital division is like following a map of three decades of growth. Having started off with one plant, Ligare now operates out of five buildings.
The company's roots are in the bindery world, and Ligare's finishing capabilities don't disappoint. Across separate areas, the book specialist operates an impressive post-press arsenal. This includes a Kolbus casemaking and foiling, a Muller Martini Monostar and a Starbinder as well as folding, wiro binding and cello glazing. With a touch of pride, Bywater also points out that Ligare is the only book printer in NSW to offer case binding. Against the soundtrack of the 35-tonne binding line, the craft of hand-binding is alive and well.
Beyond the mechanic thump of heavy metal bindery kit, Riverwood is home to a well-subscribed digital arm. Only a number of years ago, Ligare's digital offering was relatively inconsequential. Today, it accounts for around a third of the business.
Ligare's one-stop shop mind frame extends to its digital investment strategy too. It is a proud Océ house, just like CanPrint. The digital department is dominated by the Dutch vendor's mono equipment, including a high-volume continuous-feed VarioStream 7450 and a pair of cutsheet VarioPrint 6250 machines, which can reach 250ppm and both feature inline finishing. This joint approach to investment across the group has borne fruit recently, as CanPrint invested in
an Océ VarioPrint 6320 after swapping notes with Ligare.
There's more to digital than hardware. Beyond its physical expansion, Opus is extending its online presence , thanks largely to its brand new software platform, iPalm. This online system is fronted by a web-based customer portal that takes the group's suite of service right into a client's business. It's early days for iPalm, but client demands are changing so quickly that this new approach to business is getting put through its paces from the word go.
The tool allows clients to manage their own backlist, which fits into the print-on-demand model. Essentially, the system takes the wide-ranging ranging portfolio of the Opus Print Group, spanning sectors and nations, and draws them together into one online storefront.
The web and sheetfed litho side is covered. The B&W digital and online offering is sorted. There's one obvious missing link. What is Ligare's colour digital strategy? Well, that's a secret, for now. Bywater will go as far as saying that the group recognises that Ligare, CanPrint and COS could all benefit from production colour digital. It's fair to say that when they do decide to invest, it will be with a group perspective and a single-supplier focus.
What else does the future hold? Now is time to bed in all the changes. Ligare NZ has only been up and running since April. COS only came under the Opus umbrella a matter of months ago. The upshot of all this is the Ligare offering now spans the three major markets in the region. "For a lot of global publishers, Asia Pacific is a specific region," says Wilkie. "This fact is – and this is very key to our own development – that region means Singapore, Australia and New Zealand."
All the cards are in place, but Brigstocke doesn't rule out another push for growth further down the track. "There is certainly a view from our major global publishers that they would like us to be closer to other geographic regions."
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