01732 759725 30 marketing budget and preferential pricing, and it’s really important to us that we maintain those strong supplier relationships, that’s absolutely vital for us as we continue to grow,” Pollard explained. Pollard points out that the business growth has all been organic. “It’s unusual in today’s climate, where many businesses, backed by private equity, are acquiring, but we have built this business from a standing start and that’s something we are really proud of.” Whilst Dupliq’s core focus is on print, Pollard notes that diversification is also important. “We now supply telecoms, VoIP and mobile as well as coffee machines. We are also in the processing of recruiting our first telecoms specialist which will be key to us growing that side of the business.” he said. Planning for the future “We’ve seen how business can be done really well and how culture can have such a big impact. It might sound a cliché but people are our biggest asset. So, one of the most important things for us is ensuring that when people come on board, they culturally fit within what we’re trying to create.” Pollard continued: “We’re trying not to overthink the future but we are absolutely here for the long-term. We are obviously looking to tackle any challenges around changes in the industry, reduction in print volumes etc. head on. We will have to embrace new technologies, especially with a changing print environment. Service is so important for us and we want to make sure we retain a keen focus on supporting our customers. We are very proud that we haven’t lost any customers and we want to maintain that retention rate as we scale. “For now, the plan is to continue to grow the team, and therefore grow the business organically, and then more longer-term, we would potentially look at acquiring when the right opportunity comes up,” he concluded. https://dupliq.co.uk of us got to work and for the next five years, we achieved strong year on year organic growth.” Planning for the future About 12 months ago, the three directors approached UTL’s owners to explore buying them out of the business. The deal completed on November 1, 2024. “We had to look at how we would operate in the future, we had a strong customer base but no infrastructure behind that, we were essentially a sales‑led organisation,” Pollard explained. Fast-forward to now and the company has rebranded to Dupliq, moved into new offices in Chelmsford, built a fully-fledged service infrastructure and increased its headcount to ten people. Multi-vendor offering Dupliq is a true independent provider, the company has partnered with Lexmark, Canon, Ricoh, Epson and Konica Minolta. “We are laser-focused on having a true multi-vendor offering. Our OEM partners have supported us with After graduating, Chris Pollard joined Danwood, taking on a sales role in his hometown of Leeds. After a short time, he transferred to the London office, exiting the business just prior to its acquisition by Apogee. The timing was perfect, as he explains: “At the time, Danwood was probably the biggest dealership in our industry and I learned a lot during my time there. But back in 2016, I was presented with an opportunity to set up the London office of a company called Workflow, which was sold three years later to Corona (now Aurora).” This post-acquisition period was pivotal as Pollard was introduced to Dan Stevens who worked at UTL Group, a provider of technology, security and logistics solutions and Ross Tippett. “We floated the idea of setting up a separate legal entity – UTL London – which would focus purely on print, and in November 2019, that’s what we did,” Pollard said. “It was a great fit; the infrastructure was already there so we could just go out and sell and grow the business organically. Then just a few months later, the pandemic brought a halt to operations. That was an incredibly challenging 12 to 18 months, but as we came out of that tough period, the three Michelle Ryder caught up with Chris Pollard to find out more about the company’s rebrand to Dupliq, the decision to diversify into new areas including telecoms, VoIP and mobile, successes to date, and future plans UTL London rebrands as Dupliq DEALER PROFILE (l-r) Ross Tippett, Chris Pollard, and Dan Stevens
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