Regency Design: To mark his Big Birthday year, Planet Vending has asked one of the industry’s leading figures, David Harkness, to focus on how we, as an industry, will do things differently in the future – and how Regency is at the forefront of change.
Hello, I’m David Harkness.
According to statistics from the UN DESA’s ‘World Population Prospects’, ‘new 60-year-olds in high-income countries can expect to live at least another twenty-five years. As recently as the 1950s, this was true of fifty-year-olds’. In other words, ‘sixty is the new fifty’.
Which is just as well; because last month, I turned sixty. For better or for worse, that means I founded Regency Design and Print more than half my life ago; long before phrases like ‘corporate social responsibility’, ‘global warming’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ had become part of the vernacular.
And who’d have believed when I was born, (and a new ‘pop group’ called ‘The Beatles’ were all over The Light Programme), that ‘cashless payments’, ‘smart phone apps’, and ‘unattended retail’ would become ubiquitous in my lifetime?
To say ‘a lot has changed’ since I set the business up would be prosaic, to say the least: the truth is that ‘the past is a foreign country’ where they did, indeed, do things differently. So, to mark my Big Birthday year, my choice is to focus on how we, as an industry, will do things differently in the future.
By embarking on this series of articles for Planet Vending, I’m making a conscious change, I’ve made a new-year resolution, if you like, and it is to improve my communications, across the piece. I’ll tell you why…
We recently enjoyed a visit from the WISE Vending Group members at our place recently. Talk about ‘time well spent’. The overwhelming impression that I took from the event was, ‘I’ve just spent a day with some of the most innovative and respected people in the UK vending industry, and they really had no idea about seventy-five percent of Regency Design and Print’s capabilities.’ Ouch.
There was so much more we could be doing for them, to help them to hone their customer offers, to enable them to provide the kind of sustainable solutions that society nowadays demands of its suppliers. I think each side in the discussions learned equally about the other and was similarly inspired. I certainly ended the day with the feeling that there was scope for the mutually beneficial expansion of our business relationship.
Perhaps like the good people of The WISE Group you too have heard of Regency Design and Print. If prompted, perhaps you might also say, ‘they’re the people who do branding for vending machines, aren’t they?’
Over the next few months, I’ll be introducing you to those other facets of our business, that might be of use to your business. I’ll be talking about Point of Sale, 2-D Transformation, 3-D Transformation; Coffee Counters; Carts, Counters and Surrounds, and in the wider sense, Retail Transformation. Not to mention Vending Machine Housings & Rebranding, Cooler Housing & Rebranding, Permanent & Semi Permanent POS; Micro Markets, Vehicle Graphics; Branded Rooms Building Graphics.
Most importantly I hope, by reading the articles, you’ll come to appreciate that, for a long while now, we’ve been doing everything we can to make our processes more efficient, our purchasing more discerning and the products we offer for sale as eco-friendly as possible, by using recycled materials wherever we can.
I may have spent half my life in this business – but the best is yet to come
Next time, I’ll be discussing Flexible Catering and Retail Outlet Solutions!!!.
Until then, Keep Building the Future
Visit the team at Vendex North. We’re on stand Number One, of course.
- David Harkness is CEO of Regency Design and Print
Read more about Regency Design on PV here
