SOS Print & Media Group has forecast 5% growth in 2013-14 based partly on returning "several million dollars" of offshore work to Australia.
Director Michael Schulz told ProPrint that the 124-staff group had worked hard to diversify and become leaner in order to fight back against a challenging market.
"During the last 18 months, SOS has restructured several areas of the business, reduced operating costs and improved efficiencies," he said.
"We have made substantial investments in new technology in 2013 and further broadened the range of products we offer. For this financial year, the Sydney operation is on track for profitability and a 5% growth in revenue."
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Schulz said the group's "very productive" inkjet technology had allowed it to lure back work from overseas by offering faster turnarounds at "more attractive" prices.
He said although the cost of local on-demand print was still dearer than overseas offset runs, SOS could now offer clients a competitive price once they factored in freight back to Australia, warehousing in Australia and possible disposal of excess stock.
"SOS has been working with a large educational publisher over the last 18 months to enable them to produce work in Australia that had been printed offshore for many years," he said.
"SOS has made significant investments to enable this: continuous upgrades of the digital printers… followed by the installation of a high-speed inkjet [Fuji Xerox 2800] in September, which will allow SOS to produce full-colour text books with a productivity and at a price point previously unavailable."
Schulz said the 200 metre-per-minute Fuji Xerox machine had a minimum run length of 20 copies, which would allow the publisher to "significantly reduce stock levels and warehousing costs".
"For even shorter runs and print-on-demand, SOS uses Indigo and Ricoh digital printers, which produce custom text books at quantities of one and up. They also produce children's readers, high-quality colour books that were previously printed offset in minimum runs of 500 in China."
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Schulz also told ProPrint that the group's restructuring efforts had included the difficult task of shedding unprofitable clients.
"We have had numerous conversations with clients during the last 16 months which ended in the conclusion that a service or product cannot be provided at the desired price," he said.
"It is difficult to face the consequences, especially in this industry, where it is so arduous to find new clients and replace volumes. High machine utilisation and revenue growth have always been seen as guarantees for successful business, but that's not necessarily the case anymore."
Meanwhile, SOS's most recent financial report, covering the 2011-12 financial year, has recently been released by ASIC.
According to the report, SOS made a $245,000 loss for the 12 months to 30 June 2012 after posting a $520,000 profit in 2010-11. Revenue fell 9.7% year-on-year to $28.3 million.
However, there was better news from CPX, the Brisbane firm in which SOS has a 50% stake. CPX revenue jumped 13.1% to $7 million, which helped turn a $4,000 loss into a $42,000 profit.
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