Ink firm fills needs by thinking big

Executives at Phoenix Ink are celebrating a big victory these days, one that personifies a key recession survival tactic: Be opportunistic.

That opportunity came last November for the $15 million Lakewood Ranch-based firm that provides ink cartridge refill machines for national retailers, including OfficeMax. CEO Ted Helgesen heard from industry contacts that a partnership for ink refill machines between DuPont and Office Depot was on the fritz.

“They just couldn't come together,” Helgesen says of the 370 machines the giant chemical and plastics firm was to deploy in Office Depots nationwide.

Turns out Phoenix Ink needed about 350 similar machines to complete its quest to have a machine in every OfficeMax in the country. Its contract with OfficeMax, worth more than $10 million a year, is a revenue split: Phoenix Ink provides the machines, ink and trains store personnel in return for marketing, advertising and an in-store sales push. The ink refill revenues are then split.

A presence in every store would allow OfficeMax to make the refill machines a part of the company's national branding and marketing campaigns, as opposed to a store-by-store or regional approach.

“It's huge,” Helgesen tells Coffee Talk. “Everything changes when you can go national.”

With those big thoughts in mind, Helgesen bought the machines connected to the failed DuPont-Office Depot deal from a liquidator. He sent local Phoenix Ink crews across the country to bring the machines back to Sarasota, where he rented a 12,000-square-foot warehouse for a restoration center.

Next, a team of Phoenix Ink employees recalibrated the machines to fit the company's prototype. A few machines almost had to be rebuilt, while others only required some tinkering. To meet a series of deadlines, some employees worked past midnight on several shifts, says Helgesen.

When the machines were ready, Helgesen dispersed crews nationwide for installation and to train OfficeMax personnel over the past two months.

The entire project cost at least $1.5 million. “It was a pretty major undertaking,” says Helgesen. “We did a terrific job in a very short period of time.”