In the past year, the whole Group has undergone some incredibly important and exciting changes. As we head towards 2019 and beyond, we will continue to take on new challenges to help our company go from great to greater.

Hobs Repro had a record-breaking year with the acquisition of the Callprint Group. By joining forces, we are now the clear leader for reprographics in the UK. We have made investments in four focus areas:

  • The very latest digital press technology with Xerox Iridesse. We believe this is the most exciting development in digital print since the launch of HP Indigo in 1993.
  • A spectrum of scanning services, under the Hobs Exchange brand, covering bulk scanning through to meticulous legal scanning; heritage scanning and A0 flatbed scanning for fine art or old deeds.
  • Our wide format business has grown and we are investing. We now have eight HP PageWide machines for ultra fast plan and poster printing. We will focus more in this area with project management led services under the Hobs Visual Communications brand.
  • Automated bid services have seen significant success in AEC, professional services and financial services with our Qvidian®, AutoQ™ and WordIndesign™ technologies.

In Anexsys, the team have been very successful with the Crown Commercial Services framework, serving various government departments. Anexsys’ expert developers have also continued to push technological boundaries by creating a new document management system that is both mobile first and truly cloud computing first. This microservices technology will give our customers unparalleled speed and flexibility in processing and managing their documents. The platform will be launched in January 2019 through Hobs Repro as Hobshare, supporting the expansion of our Exchange business and as Papyrus for eDiscovery and ePresentment through Anexsys.

Hobs 3D, formerly ‘Hobs Studio’, has been rebranded to clearly reflect the services they provide. As well as taking on a new identity, Hobs 3D London has relocated to a state-of-the-art facility in Here East; the home of making, at the beginning of this year. The Olympic Park hosts many high-tech organisations, which places us at the very centre of UK innovation. Hobs 3D have continued to revolutionise the world of VR with the launch of the sustainable VRCUB3D - a mobile, multisensory VR platform engineered from Tri-Wall technology. The first patent pending product from the Group has been used to aid with health and safety training programs for the Thames Tideway project and has won a number of industry awards.

With so many developments underway, we plan to keep up the momentum and look forward to the bright future ahead.

On behalf of the Hobs Group, I’d like to thank the team for all their hard work and our customers for their continued business. I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Warm regards,

James Duckenfield
Hobs Group CEO