The thinking was crystal clear: the directors wanted a fresh start, a new outlook and a bold new imprimatur to stamp on its reinvigorated operations.
Oxygen is a new print company in Sydney, although it has actually been around for a while in another guise as Southern Colour NSW, headed by some familiar industry faces – Scott and Merrin Telfer and Anthony Dickinson.
The company was formed by the Telfers and Dickinson from talks with clients and a desire to move on from their positions at two of Sydney’s – indeed, the country’s – largest printers, Blue Star and Geon.
“The company has just celebrated its seventh anniversary,” Anthony Dickinson tells ProPrint with a smile. “I have known Scott for a long time through my father’s company, and we worked together at Websdale Printing. When it was sold to Geon, Scott went there and I went to Blue Star.
“After about four years, customers spoke to us about needing a new choice in printers, and we decided to do something for ourselves. Scott knew a company that wanted to work with us – Southern Colour in Victoria – and it was decided that we would set up a site here in Sydney. We could have been print brokers but we thought we needed a real presence, so we started in Scott and Merrin’s study then moved in here in 2007. People we were talking to wanted an A1 printer, so that decision was sort of made for us.”
From its beginnings as Southern Colour NSW in 2007, the company rebranded as Oxygen in late 2012 after separating from its Melbourne partner.
“In October 2012, Southern Colour decided it wanted to concentrate on its operations in Victoria, and so Oxygen was born. It was all amicable,” he says.
“That has allowed us to be masters of our own domain. We see our core business as the six-colour Heidelberg, but we have had a Konica Minolta digital printer for a while as well. We also meet other client requirements such as oversize banners and different kinds of digital print, which we source through our suppliers. We have a diversified range of products.”
Starting a business just months before the GFC tore through the economy is not everyone’s cup of tea, but Dickinson has no regrets. “I think the GFC actually made it easier for us in some ways. At least, it was easier for us than existing companies because we had a new story to tell, we had something fresh. People were looking for change. We were that change. We started at zero, so everything was up from there. But we had some history and some contacts, and were tied to a strong brand in Southern Colour. Scott was also well known in the industry through Heidelberg, Websdale and as chairman of the Print Awards for many years,” he says.
Hindsight can hide the scars, but Dickinson is philosophical about the GFC and what it taught them. He says, “It made us look back, not just over the past seven years but over the past 20 or 30 years, and understand what we have learned from that time, like print pricing.
“As much as people complain about print prices, in a way, we all support that problem in our pricing of jobs. We have all prostituted the market by lowering our prices, so new buyers look at prices as the first priority and not quality or service. We brought it on ourselves. But that happens in every industry.”
The size is right
Oxygen has about 30 staff, and is still resident in its original factory in St Leonards. Space is not a problem, and Dickinson points out that the company’s proximity with many of its clients means there are no plans to move on. The reduction in travel times for visits, particularly in Sydney’s traffic, saves significant time every week, he says.
“We still have about the same number of staff. By rearranging our shifts we downsized a bit, decommissioned an A1 press and can cover the workload on our other press by running six days, 24 hours. It also means there is no start-up and shutdown every day,” he explains.
Getting smarter, working smarter
That focus on maximising potential led the directors to streamline and maximise production capacity and make best use of their internal skill sets.
To that end, Oxygen recently completed a CMT training course. It has been, despite a few bumps in the road, a great success according to Dickinson.
“For the past two years we have been going through a CMT training course with Skill Force. It was a longer process than we thought when we began but, looking at our factory and how our people are working now, and how they communicate, which is one of the biggest things to come from CMT, they are doing it much better,” says Dickinson.
“We have the skills now to continue improving. It makes our whole business more orderly, more structured. It cleans up our warehouse. It is a different way of thinking; to not create problems in the first place.
“We have an extremely flat management structure. We have great staff, and they care about what they do. As a pretty small company, we can’t afford to have people go off in different directions.”
Fresh air, fresh thinking
The rebranding to Oxygen has provided a stimulus to the company, says Dickinson, because it forced it to take a forensic look at its makeup, operations and, indeed, its raison d’être.
“It is not just a new logo,” Dickinson says. “It is a new philosophy; a new approach to how we see ourselves and how we do business. It also comes inwards, to the people. It is around change. It is positive energy, and that goes out to customers too.
“We had a staff meeting recently, and said, it has been 18 months. How are we going, where are we going, how can we improve ourselves, where can we make ourselves more vital to the industry today?
“We love print, and want to be in it. But we have to ask, what can Oxygen do to make itself more applicable to customers, to show them how they can use our printed matter to do other things for themselves and their clients? How can we make print really appropriate for years to come?”
If Anthony Dickinson and his partners fear anything, it is stagnation and an acceptance of the status quo.
“We do not want to be a dinosaur,” he points out. “You can go into some print companies and almost smell death in the air. We want to be something new and growing, moving and changing with the industry and our customers. We want to be transparent. So we came up with words that we wanted to represent us. That is where Oxygen came from.”
Doing it all
Oxygen uses a six-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102, with a bindery area for cutting, folding and stitching. Perfect binding is outsourced, along with services such as embellishment and specialist coatings. The company also has a Konica Minolta 7000 for digital print.
The directors are not driven to build a complete inventory of print technology inhouse, but do offer a comprehensive range of services to clients by taking advantage of trusted suppliers to provide work they can’t handle themselves.
“We have a Konica Minolta 7000 on which we are printing some pretty impressive numbers. We are letting our digital print grow organically rather than forcing it. I see the digital arm as different from offset. Digital will grow. Our Konica Minolta will get busier, and then eventually we will get extra machines. We can grow further in personalisation. It is an area where we can get more experience and training for our people.
“We can’t say no to clients but we recognise that the people we deal with are experts in their areas. We support them and they support us. At the moment it works extremely well. You’re only as good as your suppliers.”
Oxygen has made many strong contacts with suppliers overseas. These were developed after discussions within the management group, as well as several enquiries from clients.
“The range of material we are producing in China is broad, but most important of all, the quality of the product is excellent. There is no point in outsourcing material – be it from a Sydney source or offshore – if the quality is not up to standard. Often we fly to China to press check the work, just as we check the quality of the work going through our own plant. This allows Oxygen to support our clients with a wider range of products with the same high quality.”
Looking outside print
While printing is the company’s focus, its directors are keen followers of communications trends, and are aware of new opportunities as they present themselves.
“We are open to most things. You need to be,” says Dickinson. “If we are about just the machines in our factory our focus will become narrow. We have good friends in marketing and advertising, and they are going the opposite way. They talk about channel marketing, but print still has one of the highest return rates. It is interesting to see how we can get more out of the printed piece, and understand how we can support them with what they are doing. We have to be able to do anything that comes along.”
The directors take every opportunity to investigate new developments, and have long been regular visitors to exhibitions and conferences.
“3D printing is interesting, but is it more than a niche market?” queries Dickinson. “The term 3D printing is a misnomer really.
“There are developments in presses, in ink technologies, and in inkjet and offset coming together. Will our next press be like the one we have now, or will it be a combination of both? Can we do plate changes so quickly we can manage personalised print for mass markets – every 100 impressions or so in a long run to target markets? There are still a lot of things that can be developed in print.”
Earning loyalty
The role of the client has changed over time. While Dickinson can recall clients who never looked elsewhere for print, that is seldom the case now. As he points out, clients are under much the same pressures as printers – to reduce costs, find simpler solutions and do it all faster. As a result, loyalty has taken a hit.
“Our clients look at us as a quality printer, and always have. They have a lot of pressure on them for prices and times for their products too. They are more open now to other printers but they know what we can do for them.
“Loyalty is out there but it is not quite like it used to be. That is partly because it is part of their job description now to find savings and beat times. But we have had customers since day one because they know what we can do.”
Finding an industry equilibrium
As a start-up, Oxygen (as Southern Colour NSW) worked through the GFC, but Dickinson is dismayed to see the number of print companies going to the wall. That may soon plateau, he predicts, as print companies realign their activities to maximise their potential. That, he says, will take a new line of thinking from some.
“There will be more attrition, but it can’t keep going at this pace. I hope for everyone’s sake that it stops soon. The balance between supply and demand has to be reached soon.
“But attrition will come to those who are not looking at their businesses and understanding how they need to be. To the blokes who say, gee, it is not like it was 15 years ago – well, it is not 15 years ago any more, it is now, and you need to be aware of your surrounds and what your business needs to do internally and externally to survive. It is not so much to do with supply and demand, it is about people just not being smart about how they do business.
“We ask ourselves, how can we be smarter? What hard decisions do we need to make to remain viable? That is why we can’t close the door on anything.”
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