Graphic Dimensions is on fire. The company has been around for 19 years, but in the past 19 months - after careful research - it has heavily focused on "supercharging" its performance and diversifying its offerings. According to the data, it appears the company is living up to its dream. Graphic Dimensions ranked No. 26 in the "Top 50 PSDA Member Trade Printers" category of Print Solutions' 2013 Top Trade Printers survey (it ranked No. 32 in 2012) and No. 10 in the "Top 25 Fastest Growing Member Trade Printers" category. Most notably, this "supercharge," as Vice President of Sales and Marketing Bill Reid puts it, has included establishing two new companies: New Dimension Labels and LaunchPad Marketing and Technology Services.

Putting Distributors First Since 1994

The groundwork for Graphic Dimensions' current success was solidly laid in 1994, when President and CEO Jay Scammell started the company out of a desire to work for an organization that put distributors first. "The primary mission of Graphic Dimensions was to provide high-quality products, exceptional service and a work environment where individuals were rewarded and valued for their hard work - a foundational principal that still exists today," Scammell said. "While we have added new products and services, our core value proposition remains unchanged." Putting distributors first essentially means assessing what distributors need and having the willingness to grow and adapt quickly in response to those needs. Graphic Dimensions is privately held, which gives it the agility needed to make swift changes. As Scammell put it: "We can respond to market conditions and distributor opportunities quickly without consulting with multiple chains of management or a board of directors. Our distributors are our shareholders, and we realize that a rightly focused business should earn business one order at a time. As our distributors grow and evolve, so do we, to provide highly relevant and value-rich solutions to respond to changes in technology and our industry." Today, Graphic Dimensions operates three manufacturing facilities, partnering with distributors in all 50 states as well as Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America.

The 'Unique Blend'

Graphic Dimensions is a full-service, trade-only manufacturer that specializes in a wide variety of business documents and business printing. Its headquarters in Austell, Ga., specializes in business documents, custom labels, and marketing and technology solutions. Its two other facilities - in Kentucky and New Hampshire - focus mainly on business documents and envelopes. But that's hardly all the company offers. "While documents, labels, and marketing and technology services comprise the whole of our services, we place no boundaries on working with our distributors on new and unique opportunities," Scammell said. "We employ many 'out of the box' thinkers that can engineer equipment, processes and technology to deliver solutions for [their] most demanding needs." Many distributors have the impression that custom label and packaging solutions as well as marketing and technology services can be applied only in a direct sale environment, which isn't true, Scammell said. "Every day we engage distributors with new opportunities that will further differentiate them from competitors in their space. We look to partner with each of our distributors to seek out and attack market opportunities to gain sales and market share and provide them with tools that will help them become successful selling all of the products we supply."

New Dimension Labels

Following its mission of keeping the distributor's needs first, Graphic Dimensions recently sent them a survey: What did its distributors want? Custom label business. What did Graphic Dimensions provide? New Dimension Labels. "The packaging industry is at a point where it is absolutely exploding," Reid said. "When we surveyed our distributor customers, they told us that they wanted to gain more of this custom label business that had traditionally belonged to direct selling manufactures." Before Graphic Dimensions entered the label arena, he said, its leaders realized that the catalog label business has been well covered for years, so instead it targeted custom, high-end prime labels. Today, its New Dimensions' staff includes many industry veterans, which "give us absolute star power when working with distributors in supporting their customer's needs," he said.

LaunchPad Marketing and Technology Services

Staying on top of distributor needs is important, but so is staying cognizant of market trends. While Graphic Dimensions doesn't agree print is dying, it does acknowledge that print is changing. "[Print is] evolving to meet the demands of the new consumers and the companies that supply them," said Andrew Alford, vice president of information technology at Graphic Dimensions. "LaunchPad is designed to help distributors better compete and stay ahead of the curve in a world where highly functioning websites, mobile apps and lean automation is key. These services come priced wholesale to allow distributors to extend yet another suite of solutions to their customers, and the ability to complement their existing print business."

Future Dimensions

Future Dimensions Every company - in every industry - experiences challenges. Graphic Dimensions, for example, sees the lack of youth infusion in the print world as a potential industry stumbling block. Smart companies such as Graphic Dimensions, though, don't balk at such threats. The firm is supremely confident in its position in the marketplace and committed to continued progress. "Graphic Dimensions doesn't just want to differentiate ourselves from our competition; we're hungry to change the game," Alford said. "In the past 19 months, we've made incredible investments in new equipment, technologies, leadership and personnel. The capabilities that we've added to our portfolio have allowed us to supercharge our performance, with many new tools and technologies to soon be unveiled in the coming months. Every day we're building upon our core to compete in today's market and positioning ourselves and our distributors well for tomorrow."

For more information on Graphic Dimensions, New Dimension Labels and LaunchPad Marketing and Technology Services, visit www.graphdim.com and www.newdimensionlabels.com.

PS - In 2012, Graphic Dimensions launched New Dimension Labels, a company that provides wholesale custom digital and flexographic labels. This year, Graphic Dimensions launched another business, LaunchPad Marketing and Technology Services, which provides resellers with resale solutions for marketing and technology opportunities. Graphic Dimensions is headquartered in Austell, Ga., (pictured here) and operates two other manufacturing facilities in Newport, Ky., and Peterborough, N.H.