SerCom Solutions

1 . Background

1.1 Company Background

SerCom Solutions was originally founded in 1978 as a commercial print company. In the late 1970's, Brian Stokes had the task of printing reports on behalf of RTE. Brian decided that the poor service provided by the printing companies he dealt with represented an opportunity for him to set up in business for himself. Soon Confidential Report Printing (CRP) was born. The company was a rapid success due to its strong customer focus, a clear niche market and investment in modern equipment.

Securing an order with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was to have a profound impact on the CRP's future. Although computer manual printing is a demanding business (with a multitude of versions of each manual required in different languages) CRP managed to successfully bid for the order. A commitment to the required level of quality standards as well as an understanding of business critical timelines resulted in repeat business from DEC.

At this time, Ireland had become the world's second largest computer software exporter and a major PC assembly centre. This resulted in an explosion in demand from Irish based Information Technology (IT) companies for computer software and hardware manuals. The DEC order helped CRP get a foothold in this market and, subsequently, in 1983, they decided to focus exclusively in this area, and changed their name to Printech.

This new strategy required significant investment in printing equipment along with large improvements in quality and production control. As the company began to grow and invest, inevitably, additional equity became necessary. In 1984, Development Capital Corporation (DCC) took a minority stake in the company.

Printech enjoyed nearly two decades of sustained growth and profitability as a supplier of printed material to IT companies. This can be attributed to the company's commitment to adapt to the rapid changes taking place in this market. As a growing number of IT companies began to contract out the process of packaging and shipping the manual and CD, Printech responded by, again, diversifying its business model. This process, known as fulfilment, also involved tasks such as the translation of manuals, packaging and boxing. Soon it was necessary for Printech to expand its warehouse and install packaging lines, in addition to strengthening its procurement and production management skills. In 1993 Printech established a turnkey operation in Scotland followed by another in Limerick in 1999 when there was another name change to SerCom Solutions.

SerCom has now become one of the leading suppliers of high quality, outsourced supply chain management solutions to blue chip IT and Telecommunications corporations in Ireland, Europe and the US. Its core competencies now include:

• print
• software replication
• programming
• software assembly
• hardware assembly