Needham Group set to accelerate three-year expansion plan in 2022

The Whitchurch-based company, which is one of the UK’s leading family-run technology firms, has set its sights on trebling revenues to £30m by 2024 and the first stage of this will involve growth in its laser marking business and a concerted move into the wide format digital printing markets.

It is an approach that has been strengthened by investment in R&D and an agreement with outsourcing specialist PP Control & Automation to become its manufacturing partner, responsible for the assembly of its N-Lase range of products.

“The last twelve months have been focused on creating the platform for this next phase of growth and establishing the culture and leadership team that will deliver it,” explained Aled Ellis, who became Managing Director at just 30-years-old in 2014.

“Whilst we are looking to transform the size of the business, we want to ensure we maintain our core values that encourage staff to relish responsibility, be confident, yet humble and to always do the right thing, including understanding how we can leave a positive environmental impact on society.”

He continued: “We want to be recognised as a great technology enabler, providing a way for amazing IP to be commercialised for the economic benefit of the UK.

“One of the new ways we will be doing that is by launching our range of Needham Inks that are suitable for use in wide format digital printing and especially in being able to print direct to garments. This is a £multi-million opportunity and we are already well on the way to implementing it in several projects.”

The Needham Group was founded by Roger Needham and has grown from a regional distributor of marker pens in the 1960s to a diverse collection of businesses serving more than 30 different markets.

Needham Inks develops, manufactures and globally distributes inks, solvents and dyes that are used for a wide variety of applications, ranging from marking eggs or meat to high resistance solutions for automotive parts.

New products will play an essential role in the growth of Needham Coding Ireland, which will be responsible for selling the group’s expanding product range and technology solutions in the emerald isle.

Aled went on to add: “Our newest business division is Needham Laser Technologies, where we have been selling ‘The N-Lase’ Laser Marking machines since 2019.

“The focus is on sharing our excitement for British laser expertise in a way that creates lifelong partnerships and develops new innovative uses for this technology.

“Our solutions are already on display in industrial settings, manufacturing and retail and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We genuinely believe we could sell an additional 300 lasers domestically over the next three years, which is why the partnership with PP Control & Automation is so important. He concluded: “We are also targeting international expansion, with four global distributors already signed up – a key building block in delivering up to £7m of annual revenue in this discipline.”