CCS McLays Celebrates Its’ First Year
July 1st saw CCS McLays celebrate its’ first year of trading, and, says Managing Director Ian Hall, “It couldn’t have gone much better.” “The first year has been fantastic for us as a company. We have contractually secured a number of major clients and our reputation for supplying first class customer service whilst allowing our clients to enjoy cost savings is growing on a daily basis. Everyone has played their part in our success and we are looking forward to building on it in the coming year.” The company’s success has resulted in a need to recruit more internal customer support staff, and also to grow the external sales team with the formation of a new business team. Ian goes on to say “We have an ambitious growth plan for the next few years and we see no reason why we will not achieve it. We believe our offering is second to none and our success to date seems to confirm that.”
Busy Times for Gareth
Whilst many people are looking forward to boarding a plane and getting away to sunny climes, spare a thought for Gareth Llewellyn, part of the CCS McLays sales team. Not only is he busy with his customers but he is already back in training for the forthcoming rugby season. In fact he started pre-season training on 6th June.
Being a professional sportsman and part of a growing company means Gareth has to divide his time between the demands of the business and those of Bristol rugby club. Not an easy thing to do, but something that he is getting used to. Gareth says “I had to take my summer holidays early this year as I have been in full time training since the beginning of June which has meant four weeks of very hard work.. When training finishes I then concentrate on my work at CCS McLays so I have to manage my diary very carefully making sure that I don’t book appointments that overlap with my training schedule.” Gareth goes on to say “luckily we had a week off from training at the beginning of July so that I could catch up with any outstanding issues before going back to training the following week.”
Ordering On-Line “Takes-Off” at McLays with Printpilot
This summer sees McLays launch Printpilot – a new web-based, ordering system that allows customers to log-on through their own web-browser and order print (and non-print) items on-line.
Printpilot has been developed to give customers a high degree of self-management control over their print and ancillary items with on-line catalogue viewing of customer’s own products, “shopping cart” ordering and job tracking. Designed to improve and increase our service levels, clients are in control of Printpilot with responsibility for users of the system authorised within their own organisation, optional secondary approval for the purchase of items and accessing reports detailing products purchased by user or cost centre.
In addition, Printpilot allows the customer to personalise print templates of business cards, point of sale and promotional material on-line, view a PDF proof of the updated template and order the final print version in one operation. The file is then automatically routed through to our digital print engines for immediate printing.
The system is secure to ensure that a customer only views products that apply to their own organisation and while Printpilot is our own generic ordering system, the web screens can be designed to reflect the look and feel of an individual customer’s own website.
Printpilot will also be used for direct mail production allowing authorised customer to select a standard letter template, upload a data name and address file and watch Printpilot populate the variable fields with the names and addresses for immediate client approval and saved as a PDF file that can be proof-printed to any local printer on the customer’s own network.
The system is planned to go live with three primary customers within the insurance, financial services and retail markets during the next few months.
For more information on Printpilot, or if you would like a demonstration of the system contact sales_ccs@mclays.co.uk
CCS McLays Grows New Business Team
Tony Hallett and Jacqueline Brodie have joined Cardiff based print management company CCS McLays. They join ex-Wales rugby captain Gareth Llewellyn in the New Business team.
Tony brings with him over 20 years of experience within the print market. His knowledge of the industry, especially in South Wales, will help the company expand its already impressive customer base. Jacqui, who joined in July, will enhance the company’s knowledge and skills within stationery and she joins after spending the last few years working for a national stationery company in London, but more recently in South Wales.
CCS McLays Managing Director Ian Hall says “New business is the lifeblood of any company and both Tony and Jacqui are proven new business sales people. They will concentrate on securing new accounts and developing existing accounts that we hope will grow into larger print management accounts. We plan to expand this team even more, and we will be joined in September by another sales person with a successful track record in the new business arena.”
Geoff Kingman Joins CCS McLays
Geoff Kingman has joined the team at CCS McLays after a long career in the printing industry. Having worked at all levels within the industry, Geoff has acquired a great deal of experience with production processes, sales and marketing and senior management within a major print manufacturing group. .
Geoff held the position of Sales Director with communisis bbf until 2002, he then joined Access Plus/TripleArc for three years, working on a number of varied projects such as key account support and supplier vendor management, so providing a good understanding of the needs of clients and suppliers within an outsource relationship. Geoff says “Joining CCS McLays provides an environment for me to push myself, working with a great team of people who enjoy delivering the goods.” He goes on to say “Being part of an £18million group with lithographic and digital print technology, combined with a first class print management service is very exciting.”
One of Geoff’s duties will be to create a vendor management system and he will also be looking at potential acquisitions for the company. “Geoff is well respected within the industry and his knowledge and experience will be invaluable to us” says CCS McLays MD Ian Hall, “His role with us represents a new challenge, allowing Geoff to use his knowledge and experience working with the team in a variety of areas.”