While 2020 brought with it challenges and uncertainties never before experienced in our lifetimes, the management team at Innova Art Ltd, were determined not to allow the COViD pandemic to hold us back. So, once we took care of the related health & safety requirements, we committed ourselves to pushing forward to realise our intended vision.
“We used the slower moments of the pandemic to take a long and hard look at our own organisation and visualise the business we really want to be, thereafter we fully initiated the steps required to move us towards the vision we created.” Comments Nevelle Bower, Innova Art Ltd CEO.
The first step in this direction was to notice that, as we enter our 19th year in business, we have become, an industry leading manufacture of digital fine-art and photographic media with a high-quality sheet and roll converting facility. We recognised that our skills and capabilities could be offered across a much broader digital and imaging media range. Therefore we took the initiative to expand and increase our capabilities in order to offer our experience and services to others just as markets turned their attention to more regional solutions. We added four batch-slitters, a reel-to-reel master roll slitter and a state-of-the-art (semi-automatic) sheeting line with packing processes to our already very capable facility.
Adding these 6 new machines have increased the production capabilities from 2000 finished rolls per month to 12000, with sheeting and packing potentials up more than 100%. All of this we achieved while maintaining a strict COViD safety policy with socially-distanced workstations spaced much further apart than the governments required 2m divisions.
We are growing responsibly
The resulting growth in the last quarter of 2020, even though planned and targeted, has created a consequential pressure on the storage space required to hold the increased raw materials and support the through-put of finished goods. So, as part of our forward vision, we have moved forward with the planning permission previously granted to build an additional warehouse at the rear of the main factory. The work is scheduled to begin in August 2021.
The first COViD lockdown in March, through May, in 2020 resulted in some areas of our business experiencing a drop in sales, especially (and significantly) in the retail segments. Nevertheless, we were able to quickly adapt and respond through the vision actioned, securing new business, utilising the production capacity mentioned above, to conclude the financial year with a slight increase in turnover on the previous year. With the retail segments now returning with significant volumes, Innova Art Ltd. is on target to report record growth by the end of this current financial year.
Furthermore, during the pandemic we focussed on our commitment to quality by expanding on an already well established “Lean thinking” and “Lean management” philosophy by working towards, building, and ultimately achieving the prestigious ISO 9001 certification for Innova Art Ltd. https://innovaart.com/iso90012015-certification-for-innova-art/
Innova Art takes its social responsibilities seriously, and so in addition to the 100KW solar panel system installed at our production facility to reduce our carbon footprint, Innova Art is committed to supporting a sustainable future for all. In order to bring our attention to the forestry commissions and further our environmental story, Innova Art has undergone FSC-Chain-of-Custody certification for the relevant products and is actively seeking other exercises that will benefit society. https://innovaart.com/archival-and-environmental-standards/
Forward to the Future
Innova Art Ltd. has a progressive attitude, and a hunger to succeed now and in the future. With a fully focussed management team we are able and willing to continually take on the challenges businesses today face with a positive and opportunistic intention. But our vision doesn’t end there, we recognise that the future is always just in front of us and, Innova’s management team is clearly focused on the next steps as we continue to expand and build a future able to realise the potentials ahead of us.
As we move forward into the new ‘normal’, there are exciting new products on the horizon, enhanced customer support and the reintroduction of live trade shows later this year. Our vision for an eco friendly future whilst preserving the beauty and wonder of the printed form in a sustainable way will ensure the printed art form should not be lost.
We have grown up and are striding forward into our future! We hope you will join us….