What started as one man’s decision to focus on print services within an advertising agency slowly became the company’s saving grace. Now KGK Genix only provides print services under its now managing director Graham Pitts, who continues to invest in the company’s future. Assistant editor Benjamin Austin visited its base in Harlow to find out more.
KGK Genix
Before the turn of the millennium, KGK was a flourishing advertising agency working with clients offering millions for its services.
Now the company is recording some of its highest-ever profits having turned over £9 million last year, but doing so within the print industry.
The shift in focus was not a direct decision but one that inadvertently future-proofed the company as it continues to roll the dice with future investments into both people and equipment.
A foot in the door.
The origins of the company began in 1989 with founders Ken and Gail Pitts starting the advertising company in Hertfordshire under its original name KGK.
By 1998 their son and now managing director, Graham joined the ranks but was immediately looking for ways to fast-track his status within the business.
He said: “I had a few rungs on the ladder to climb but I didn’t want to take the slow road.
“The advertising guys had been in the industry for years so I said what about print?
“We mostly outsourced our print at the start and I was seeing clients talking about their adverts and we’d say why don’t we do some posters for your windows or POS for the stores, so it ended up being a full-service thing.
“I wanted to do something that would make me the company expert and build upon it and progress as quickly as I could.”
It was a small operation initially with Graham and his two brothers only working with a few HP printers but he was keen to get it off the ground and around 20 years ago KGK bought its first UV printer.
Graham Pitts with the swissQprint Kudu
He continued: “We went to Belgium to see the Vutek PressVu 200/600 and at the time they said we didn’t have enough turnover to buy the machine.
“We were only earning £100,000 from the print side of the business with the advertising part being very much at the forefront. Dad called this his little side hustle.
“The machine cost £180,000 and even though we weren’t earning enough I was confident I could get the work and I wanted to make sure we had the machine to service the clients.”
But what started as a side hustle for the business by 2009 became its primary service as the company’s former advertising clients dried up with the credit crunch around that time and demise of local press.
Graham continued: “A lot of our clients were based in the subprime mortgage market.
“They went from huge accounts with some as high as £1 million to suddenly dropping to £10,000 to £15,000 and it wasn’t sustainable.”
“To say the print side of the business was to keep me busy wasn’t 100% the case but it was more I didn’t want to take the slow road but luck certainly paid a part.”
Growing the business
By 2009 the advertising side of KGK had come to an end with the primary focus being on its printing services mainly in the retail industry.
One of its biggest clients was a Soho-based graphics company called Genix Imaging. By 2014 the owners wished to sell the business as they were looking to retire so it was at this point KGK made another bold investment decision.
Graham said: “They were getting offers from big companies but they didn’t want the clients stripped out and the staff left behind and at the time they were our largest client spending about £1 million a year with us.
“So, we made the decision quite boldly to buy our largest customer which was a strange one.
Three Epson SureColor 80600s
“Within a three-month period, I went from being the company’s sales rep to being one of the directors of the business as KGK Genix was formed.
“It was a logistical nightmare too as overnight we gained another 40 staff but we also needed to vacate the building in Soho as it was sold to make flats.
“The London operation was moved to Tottenham but with that, the Harlow base and Thundridge, we now had a lot of duplication and a lot of kit.”
But the acquisition paid off again with the company becoming a greater force than before, growing its staff count to 106 and more importantly its turnover to £12 million.
It’s all about the new kit
To keep up, more equipment had to be brought in, and now the company has 14 machines bought through CMYUK, with the latest being the Canon Colorado.
Despite a significant but inevitable drop in business during the COVID years, Graham is still pushing to invest in more equipment.
Last November, the company added an entirely new small-format department as well as major investment in the new SwissQprint Kudu flatbed printer and the Konica Minolta AccurioPress C12000.
The Colorado, the Kudu and the Konica, along with the small-format finishing equipment, and the building of a new mezzanine area at the Harlow base cost around £1 million, but as before, when pushing the print side of the business Graham is hoping these investments will pay off for the company.
He said: “What often happened would be us waiting for the small-format work to arrive before we could collate it.
Konica Minolta AccurioPress C12000
“That put an extra load of pressure on the production team downstairs so bringing it in-house though was a significant investment, we think will pay off in the long run.
“We rolled the dice again but confidence is at an all-time high and we no longer outsource any of our small-format work.
“We can also upsell our large-format services to these clients which has been a door-opener to a new market.”
Investing in the company’s future
With so much kit suddenly coming through the door Graham has said the next investment will not be on machinery but on people.
KGK Genix works closely with visual merchandising students at the local Hertford Regional College in Ware to organise its Student Retail Design and Careers Competition.
This year is the third time it has been held with pupils given a design brief to build a retail window for one of KGK’s clients.
Previous years have seen students provide visual effects for Nike and Superdry and this year it is for fashion designer Dune.
It has been a competition that has been hugely beneficial for both the students getting extra credits to their course but also KGK which has hired three contestants in two years.
Graham said: “When you work with students who have an interest but haven’t thought of print as a way into the industry, it entices them into a different direction.
“Their end goal would still be visual merchandising but we can help them get in that way and they can bring in new ideas.”
Playing their cards right
Call it clever business brains or lucky investments, KGK Genix has benefited from its investments.
The company’s mantra is ‘Yes, now what is the question’ and with this line of thinking perhaps it isn’t difficult to see how these decisions have proven successful.
KGK Genix has always found avenues to help its customers in different ways and by continuing to invest in future machines and staff it can carry on going above and beyond for the client.
