AS Budget day nears a business with big growth ambitions urges the Chancellor to support SMEs in their efforts to boost the country’s productivity.

Name:

Joe Keenan.

Age:

55.

What is your business called?

ACA Print Finishing & Packaging Solutions.

Where is it based?

Inchinnan, by Glasgow Airport.

What services does it offer?

Luxury and high end finishing processes to print products including foiling, varnishing and book binding. We also make forms, a trade term for the tool used for cutting corrugated board to a printer’s specification and generally serve the print trade with print and packaging solutions, especially printers whose customers are in the food and drinks industry

To whom does it sell?

To over 200 printing businesses throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK, including Northern Ireland.

What is its turnover?

£4.7m.

How many employees?

83.

When was it formed?

The company has been trading since 1981: I along with five colleagues led a management buyout of the business on 1 November 2016.

Why did you take the plunge?

I have been working within the print finishing industry since leaving school. I completed an apprenticeship as a bookbinder and attended classes at the old Glasgow College of Building & Printing. I‘ve worked in a variety of print finishing production roles for a range of businesses in both Scotland & North of England. I joined ACA as operations manager back in 2005 and ran production for seven years before leaving to join one of its biggest customers. I was aware that the owner of ACA wanted to sell the business so in 2015, with my business partner, serial entrepreneur Dara Changizi, we approached its owner with a plan to buy it from him.

What was your biggest break?

Meeting Dara: we clicked immediately and had a common view of how to make a business like ACA perform up to its true potential. Dara has gained a wealth of entrepreneurial experience across a wide range of businesses from commercial property to the motor trade. After visiting the factory and going through the previous accounts, he quickly identified the growth potential of ACA and saw that with global packaging showing an annual increase of three per cent per annum and ACA’s current standing within the print finishing trade there was a huge opportunity to grow the company and make it more profitable. We come from entirely different backgrounds but both have a passion for ACA and its role within our market place

What was your worst moment?

Probably the very long 60 minutes between finally signing all the paperwork to buy ACA and then waiting to hear that funds had been received by the vendor and the deal had finally crossed the line.

What do you most enjoy about running the business?

Leading a team of people who enjoy working together. As a management team we make a point of talking each day to all of our colleagues on the shop floor to better understand how they are thinking. To enhance this we recently bought 20 tickets which were open for any our colleagues who wanted to attend a boxing match at the Crowne Plaza to support one of our apprentices who was fighting on the card that night. All 20 seats where quickly snapped up and we all enjoyed the evening.

What are your ambitions for the business?

ACA urrently runs profitably at around 40 per cent of its true capacity. We need to work on increasing that to 100 per cent by which time we would expect to be turning over £10m a year. Even if we get up to 60 per cent capacity in the medium term we would be looking to hire another 20 to 30 people. We are beginning to get requests for work from the south and west of England. Longer term, we would like to set up an operation in the south of England which mirrors what we have here

What could the Westminster and/or Scottish governments do that would help?

Focus on developing nationwide strategies to help companies like ours to improve their productivity and widen customer bases.

What was the most valuable lesson that you learned?

Have trust in your colleagues and faith in the workforce. Most people want to do a good job if you support and encourage them.