Big changes are underway in an Enniskillen business commonly known for its printing capabilities.

A family business, The Print Factory has been employing around 25 people in the town for over 30 years. It was “badly hit” by the economic crash and has had to diversify in order to survive. A £100,000 investment in a new embroidery machine has seen the company move into the entirely new arena of embroidering logos onto uniforms and sportswear.

Brothers Aidan and John Cosgrove are Directors of The Print Factory, which was established by their father, John. Originally based in Derrychara, it is now situated in Lackaghboy Industrial Estate employing 25 people, many of whom have been there since day one.

“Embroidery wouldn't have been in our mindset 30 years ago. From 1984 until 2012, the core of the business was commercial print. But with the present economic climate, we decided to diversify and spread our wings,” Aidan Cosgrove tells The Impartial Reporter.

The business now has three main arms: print, embroidery and memorial cards. It is also in the process of developing an e-commerce site.

“I'm always of the opinion; 'don't turn any enquiry away'. We kept getting enquiries about embroidery, so it developed from there,” Aidan explains. “Our customer's corporate identity is very important to them.

“We have lots of local competitors who have been doing this a lot longer than us but we saw an opening and went for it.” Once the decision was made to keep the new embroidery arm of the business in-house, Aidan broke the news of the investment to Accounts Manager Hartmut Linnig.

“If you don't invest, you get no return so you have to go with the times and reinvest in machinery and look at new avenues. Flexibility is important,” Hartmut tells The Impartial Reporter.

A one-head machine was very quickly up-graded to a six-head machine in order to embroider more items at a faster pace. “We are very lucky that the sellers have been flexible in terms of our re-payment schedule,” Harmut says, adding: “You can't live on printing on its own anymore, especially not in a small county like Fermanagh.

“It's like a supermarket, supermarkets are not supermarkets anymore, you can book your holidays, your insurance.

“At the end of the day, you can come in here and you will probably get it. Everyone associates our name with just print, we want to get the message out that if you want your name on a mug, we'll do it.” The Print Factory's first customer was Americk Webtech and Aidan is pleased to see more local companies come on board such as Quinn Building Products, Encirc (the new owners of what used to be Quinn Glass) and Enniskillen ladies Rugby Club.

“I'm glad that money is being spent in the local economy,” Aidan says. “We won't change our name but we must get our new services out there. It's refreshing when you hear customers saying: 'We didn't know you did that but we would love to do business with you if you can be competitive.' “Competitiveness is key. We are still learning. First you talk to your customer. We are happy that we are able to compete with bigger companies that are operating at a much larger scale than ourselves.” The reaction from the print world has been 'are you mad?'. Aidan states: “But the world is changing, we all send invoices electronically for example. If printing companies don't look at different avenues, they are going to be left behind.

“When times were good, you didn't have time to look at these things. Print has evolved since the economic crash; our run lengths are crazy. Compared to five years ago, lead times have reduced from a few days to less than 24 hours. e.g. A woman going to the Balmoral show on the Monday came to the Print Factory on the Friday with a booklet. You need a bit of time but you can't turn them away either!

“We are very lucky that we do everything in-house therefore we can accommodate the shorter lead times and we are not relying on others.” Access to finance remains “a constant battle”, Hartmut reports.

He states: “We are in a very strong position financially. Locally, I see that before 2008 we were clever enough to invest an awful lot of money into extensions and machinery. We didn't know about the crash but we were well prepared for it. We were very badly hit but we didn't have to pay off any staff.” Aidan adds: “We had a few customers who stung us bad, but they probably didn't see the crash coming either.” The printing side of the business remain its strongest area, with pre-press, graphic designers, production and sales all on site.

The Print Factory has always been known locally for memorial cards, but it was a chance call from a woman in Texas that prompted the company to create a memorial card website, 'The Memorial Card company'. “It was a mammoth task that took over a year and the website went live three months ago,” Aidan explains. “By giving it that general name, we ensure more hits on google and we now have customers from across Ireland, the UK and America.” Aidan hopes to employ five more staff in the new arm of the business. He concludes: “If we have enough to keep our staff happy, that's great. If we can grow the business slowly over the next few years, it will be a bonus.”