01732 759725
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MPS
Capita Document and Information
Services (CDIS) plans to treble
turnover within the next four
years. According to Alpesh Unalkat,
Managing Director of Capita’s
managed print business, CDIS aims
to do this through a combination of
strong organic growth and a series of
strategic acquisitions.
This is a tried and tested approach for
Capita, which entered the MPS market
in 2011 with the acquisition of Right
Document Solutions (RDS), an independent
Canon, Kyocera, Ricoh and Sharp reseller,
of which Unalkat was then a director and
shareholder.
In the last three years, the business
has more than doubled in size, delivering
added-value managed services nationwide,
predominantly to larger, multi-site
organisations.
Capita’s desire to extend the
geographical reach of CDIS was pivotal in
its decision to acquire managed print and
document solutions company Complete
Imaging Limited. Complete, which is
located in Birmingham, Cambridge and
Southampton, has joined the managed
print services arm of CDIS and will
continue to trade under the Complete
brand name.
Perfectly aligned
Unalkat says that Complete’s core business
is perfectly aligned to the CDIS business
model; it provides end-to-end cost-effective
managed print services, from the supply of
machinery and equipment to online print
management software.
“Complete has been operating in the
print and document management business
for over 30 years. We particularly liked the
fact that they have a strong, clean trading
record; a customer base that complements
our own; and a great reputation in the
market,” he said.
“We are not a transactional business
and don’t operate as a commodity
sales operation. We are more about full
document lifecycle solutions and are
genuinely vendor-agnostic. We have
relationships with most major OEMs,
including Canon, Sharp, Ricoh and Kyocera,
and now, through Complete, we have
Samsung on board.”
As part of the deal, 80 Complete
employees have transferred to Capita,
including Managing Director Steve Ward
and the senior management team. Unalkat
expects the headcount to rise further as
CDIS continues to develop Complete.
“We are successfully pushing ahead
with our strategy to grow apace – this
acquisition was not about stripping the
business down and cherry picking which
bits we retained. In fact, we are now
actively recruiting to strengthen that team.
Our goal is to invest to build on Complete’s
excellent reputation,” he said.
Further acquisitions
As well as building up Complete, CDIS is in
discussions with similar businesses with a
view to making further acquisitions in the
near future.
“Having gone through the process
ourselves, I know that the Capita due
diligence process is a stringent one, so
only a select type of business will make the
mark,” explained Unalkat. “What we are
Capita’s recent acquisition of Complete
Imaging Limited is part on an ambitious
growth strategy for its managed print services
division
A strategy
for growth
looking for is clean solid businesses with
the right geography and fit in order for us
to really ramp up our growth. Our plan
is to invest and grow the acquisitions we
make; that’s how Capita works.”
Although managed print on its
own is a growing market, where CDIS
sees real opportunity is in providing
managed print in conjunction with the
wider services it offers. These include
document management; scanning, storage,
indexing and archiving; digital mailrooms;
transactional print and mailing; bulk
printing; and hybrid mail.
“We are efficiently geared for large
scale operations and want to integrate
MPS with other services,” said Unalkat.
In addition to the acquisition of
complementary businesses, CDIS is
continuing to invest in new print facilities
and warehouses. These include a £17
million, 90,000 sq ft print and distribution
facility in Mansfield; a warehouse and
distribution facility in Canning Town, which
is four times the size of Capita’s previous
building; and a 177,000 sq ft site for
inbound mailing and digital mailroom,
storage and scanning services.
Our plan is
to invest and
grow the
acquisitions
we make;
that’s how
Capita
works.
Alpesh Unalkat,
Managing Director,
Capita Managed
Print Business
Steve Ward
