TGtB Meets? Dave Broadway

Following the prestigious Bath Chronicle Business Awards 2014, held at Bath Racecourse on the 11th of September, TGtB caught up with Dave Broadway, Managing Director of CFH Docmail and winner of the Environmental Business of The Year.

Congratulations on your win! Tell us a little bit about your business?

With its lithographic and digital print capability, in house mail sortation, and downstream access and own postal delivery service, CFH provides a complete supply chain service, from plain paper in to the business to final delivery to the final user of the documents produced.  This ‘supply chain under one roof’ allows CFH to achieve the maximum saving for its clients across all aspects of the service since overheads are minimised, and only one profit margin needs to be earned. In 2007 CFH entered the postal services market, signing a condition 9 access agreement with Royal Mail to become a Downstream Access (DSA) provider and installing its first mail sortation equipment, then in 2008 CFH launched its hybrid mail service, Docmail, which is now the largest such service in the UK.

To compliment Docmail, CFH launched its own end to end postal service, employing postmen in Bristol, and subsequently Bath, for doorstep delivery of mail; this will soon be rolled out in Edinburgh and Slough.

Following acquisitions of Print for Business Limited (PRINT.UK.COM) and FST Technology in Scotland, CFH is now a £35m print and postal services business employing over 300 people with print and mail capability in 3 locations, Radstock (near Bath), Slough, and Livingston in Scotland.

CFH believe our main strength is being able to offer an innovative, flexible and secure print and mail solution to organisations throughout the UK.

What does winning this award mean for you and your company?

This is a great achievement for CFH as a manufacturing business; we are so pleased to gain local recognition for our environmental work.

Why do you think you won?

We believe we are unique in the services we provide such as Fossil Fuel Free post. Nobody else in the UK can do it.

How are you planning to celebrate your victory?

We already did with extra red wine at the awards dinner.

Business is clearly booming, why do you think so many people visit Bath?

Bath has such beautiful buildings in a beautiful setting, with a low rise skyline and so much History.

What's your favourite thing about Bath and why?

Eating out - huge choice of restaurants and bars and the small business community has been so supportive of our Velopost postal delivery and collection service.

Tell us a little bit about the role that you play within the business?

I am the Managing Director, my strategy for the future is based on “Creating and delivering documents in the most efficient, cost effective and environmentally friendly way”. Our strategy is based around Docmail, Velopost and Dotpost (online document delivery) as our key growth areas supported by our existing contractual business.  All major new investment and marketing are aimed at growing these three strands

What advice would you give to someone looking to succeed in your industry?

Always ask “why?” and to achieve environmental improvements:

• Look for the “low hanging fruit" to reduce energy consumption. For most businesses this should start with LED lighting as the majority of businesses will not be aware just how much their lighting is costing them.
• Check for regional development grants or similar to support that initial work.
• Start a continual improvement program to look at reducing energy usage. Examine all of your energy using processes to find steps that you can take.
• Bear in mind that reducing energy usage will almost always be cheaper than generating your own sustainable energy.
• Look at suppliers of renewable energy. Ecotricity, Scottish Power and Good Energy are three examples. If you have already achieved some energy use reduction, the switch will be less costly to you.
• Look at energy generation. At the moment only Wind and Solar are really open to most medium size businesses. Some special cases may be able to justify biomass generators, but to most, the transporting of fuel and waste for such a system will offset the good you achieve. Your location and property will help in the decision on whether to go Wind or Solar. A large roof space lends itself to solar, whereas a location on the west coast of Scotland or Cornwall might be better suited to wind.
• Take small steps. You won’t do it all at once, but each step will improve things a little.