Concord Litho
Group’s third generation looks to the future
Forrest, who at time was working for an offset printer in Boston, had his own ideas. He headed for the green spaces of New Hampshire and opened the Concord Litho Company in Concord, focusing primarily on printing greeting cards. Within a year, the company employed 20 people and grew to become one of the leading greeting card printers in the United States, producing 2.5 billion cards per year. In the 1970s, Forrest handed over the reigns to his son, Jim Cook. It didn’t take Jim long to implement a bold initiative of his own. In 1977, Jim purchased the company’s first (of many more to come) heat-set M-110 press with in-line finishing. This change began a fundamental shift in the company’s business strategy — diversifying the company’s product lines by adding direct mail capabilities aimed at both commercial and non-profit customers. Today, greeting card work accounts for only about 25 percent of the company’s annual revenues, with the balance comprised of commercial printing and direct mail components. Currently, more than 225 people work at Concord Litho. The company’s annual sales are about $40 million in 2003. Serving multiple markets helps in tough
times By then, however, Concord Litho was able to withstand slow periods better than some other companies, many of which couldn’t hang on and eventually closed their doors. Serving multiple markets and various industries helps the company through sluggish economic times. Concord Litho serves clients in the non-profit, retail, publishing, tourism, telecommunications, and pharmaceutical industries. Its client list includes household names such as Time Warner, Verizon, American Heart Association, Pfizer, Dunkin Donuts, TV Guide, and World Wildlife Fund, among others. Concord Litho also produces a majority of the brochures for the state of New Hampshire tourism areas. Other clients include regional advertising agencies Hill, Holliday, Connors; VIA, L.W. Robbins, THD, and Epsilon. One area management has focused on recently is its work with other printers. Concord Litho’s “Printer’s printer,” program has its own sales representative who concentrates exclusively on selling to other printing companies. CEO Peter Cook explained the program. “Our unique capabilities — a 64-inch press and in-line printing — have allowed us to form partnerships with other printers in the area,” he said. Strength of a company lies in its management
Peter Cook spent some time in the plant while he was growing up, but he went to work elsewhere when he finished undergraduate and postgraduate work that culminated in a master’s degree in business. He spent six years in commercial banking for Fleet Bank and Citizens Bank in Boston both as a commercial lender and a workout specialist. Following graduation from business school, he worked for a real estate advisory firm, Thompson Doyle & Co. in Boston, as a downtown office commercial broker, as well as a real estate advisor for Quebecor (USA). This was following Quebecor’s acquisitions of American Signature and Petty, and Peter worked closely with them to consolidate and manage their real estate holdings, including their owned plants and leased office space. He joined the family business in 1998 as vice president of finance, and became chief executive officer in 2001. He is currently a member of the board of directors of Printing Industries of New England.
He oversaw the company’s acquisition of Connecticut Color in 1997. He became executive vice president of sales and marketing and supervised all customer service, sales, and creative services for the company. He was named company president in 2001. Tom is currently involved with National Catholic Development Conference and served on its advisory board in 2003. A third brother, Jimmy Cook, works as a plant buyer. He recently celebrated his 29th anniversary with the company. Attention toward the customer is key
Sales and customer service representatives work as coordinated teams, and collectively represent Concord Litho in the marketplace. “Our sales team is constantly working with our customers to solve their problems,” Peter Cook said. “They make recommendations for how our customers can achieve their goals and save money at the same time.” CSRs are on call 24 hours a day and, according to Tom, “will not hesitate to come into the plant during their off-time if there is an unexpected problem with a job.” Creativity & innovation are key
differentiators Concord Litho has had numerous successful experiences with clients that over time have led to stronger working relationships and quite frankly — more work.
The new design has been wildly successful, with 70 percent of the magazine’s readership regularly viewing the inserted advertising information. Concord Litho is now in the process of securing a patent on this invention. Another example of creative innovation geared toward clients was the introduction of gift wrap packages for the non-profit fund raising market. While the company prints all of the wrapping paper for these packages, it also helps its clients make important decisions about how much paper to produce, the number of sheets per package, and the design, among other items. The company believes it can offer clients something that no other printer can — experience in putting together successful direct mail packages. State-of-the-art plant and technology First, the company purchased a new KBA Rapida 64-inch press, and reduced the number of sheetfed presses from six older presses ranging in size from 40-inches to 77-inches to two 64-inch presses. The replacement of these older presses with new equipment enabled the company to substantially improve the productivity of its sheetfed department, while improving the company’s ability to compete in the large-format short run segment. The new KBA Rapida is a 64-inch seven-color press with perfector and in-line aqueous coater. It is loaded with semi-automatic plate changers; CIP3 digital interface, automatic blanket, plate impression and roller washing, and a KBA closed-loop densitometry system. The second part of this capital improvement program was the consolidation of the Connecticut Color, a Meriden, Conn. company — which was acquired in 1997 — into the Concord plant, which is about 220,000 square feet.
“As the industry began to contract in 2000, we looked at the investments we needed to make in Meriden — namely an update to a CTP workflow — and we were faced with the decision to invest into two plants, or to consolidate operations and concentrate our investments in one plant,” Peter Cook explained. “As we wanted to maintain our M-1000 business which had become a key element of our direct mail business, we decided to move the newer M-1000 from Meriden to Concord, while substantially upgrading the press, including all new electronics, adding a longer dryer, and rebuilding certain mechanical elements of the press.” The third part of the expansion plan was to add a bindery to the operations in Concord. Historically, the company had not had a bindery, as many of products are finished in-line on the web presses. “We decided that due to reduced turn around times required by our customers, as well as a greater need to control both the timing and quality of production, we would develop an in-house bindery,” Peter Cook said. “We have invested over $1.6 million in the new operation and added 30 new positions. This investment adds high-speed cutting, folding, and saddle stiching capabilities to our extensive in-line heat set web finishing capabilities. The most recent purchase for the bindery was a large format Heidelberg Polar 155 XT Cutter.” Cook said the goal with the in-house bindery has been to produce about 50 percent of the needed bindery work in-house. The goal is being met and the company still keeps neighboring binderies busy. The company is currently upgrading the software on its Macs in its prepress department, and making other investments in information technology. Concord Litho is also in the process of enhancing some of its older web presses, which date back to the early 1970s and 1980s. Planning for the future “Our sales reps and customer service staff is unique in their ability to find innovative solutions to customer problems,” Tom Cook explained.
“This is an extremely successful and growing area of our business,” Peter Cook said. “For example, we’re currently printing calendars and gift wrap for World Wildlife Fund. Calendars for Amvets, and calendars for American Rivers. We see this part of the business continuing to grow in the future.” “We face many of the same challenges as our competition. It’s a continual challenge to stay abreast of technology improvements and to meet our customer’s expectations of quicker turnaround times. Our solution has been to become an innovative company, working closely with customers to develop unique solutions to their problems,” said Tom Cook. |
The decisions
by Peter, 36, and Tom, 40, are bold in their own right – as bold
as their grandfather Forrest Cook’s decision in 1958 to start
Concord Litho Group.
“The
premise is simple. Each week printers receive requests for a number
of jobs that they can’t do in-house — as do we — because
no printer can be all things to all people,” he said. “Instead
of turning away business, we partner with others printers on jobs that
they can’t do and they partner with us on jobs that we can’t
do. It’s been an extremely successful program for us and our partner
printers.”
Upon college
graduation, Tom Cook went to work in Massachusetts as a sales representative
for the American Greetings Inc. where he managed between 60 and 80 different
accounts and more than 20 merchandisers. He joined the family business
in 1989 as a sales rep and focused on the Boston market. He went on
to later cover the New England region and the Tri-State area.
When the publishing
company Rodale Inc. wanted to sell more advertising space in its Prevention
Magazine, it looked to Concord Litho for a solution. The printer developed
an original cover design that significantly increased available advertising
space. By adding an insert pocket to its front cover, Prevention Magazine
is now able to sell advertising on the inside cover, and on both sides
of a sleeve that slips into the cover.
The Connecticut
Color acquisition was an important strategic move for the company, as
Concord Litho acquired two M-1000 presses with in-line equipment to
supplement the M-110 web press capabilities already in place in New
Hampshire.
CLG’s
niche in the fund raising market is producing high-quality premium products,
such as greeting cards, gift wrap, and calendars. In addition to printing
and mailing these products, Concord Litho also has an in-house design
team. They develop unique designs that speak directly to each organization’s
unique mission statement.
