Dyson was founded in 1993 by British inventor James Dyson to manufacture and market an innovative bag-less vacuum he had invented. The vacuums were an immediate success. Dyson soon began building a worldwide distribution network, selling its innovative vacuums in dozens of countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Malaysia. In October 2003, after a decade of global success, Dyson decided the time was right to enter the American market.
 
Dyson planned an aggressive launch into the US market, with the goal of quickly becoming one of the largest players. In order to do this Dyson had to quickly find trust-worthy suppliers and partners who had the ability to grow with them. Unique was privileged to be one of the respondents to Dyson’s request for comparative pricing on a number of hypothetical printing jobs, and after the initial pricing comparison, Unique was selected to participate in a print quality comparison. All prospective printers completed print tests using files supplied by Dyson, which were then sent to Dyson’s UK headquarters for analysis. Based on the pricing and quality tests, Unique was selected as a preferred supplier of conventional printing.

FINDING THE RIGHT FIT
Dyson’s entry and growth in the US market was phenomenal. In just over a year, Dyson was already the largest vacuum manufacturer by dollar volume and was aiming to be the largest manufacturer by unit volume within the next year. As Dyson’s American division grew, so did their relationship with Unique.
 
Dyson originally saw Unique strictly as a conventional print partner for production of high-quality collateral pieces (brochures, sell sheets, etc.) of medium run lengths. However, when Dyson was looking for a way to produce highquality printed pieces cost-effectively at lower quantities, as well as streamline their ordering and fulfillment process, Unique’s digital printing and Online Print Store technologies were a natural fit. By utilizing the full range of Unique’s services, Dyson was able to address several key challenges, including:

Printing & Production
By the end of 2004, Dyson’s sales force had grown from zero to over 50 account executives dispersed across the country.These account executives are responsible for servicing Dyson retailers in their region and insuring retailers are stocked with marketing and promotional materials. Since Dyson is still new to the market and manufactures very innovative products, being able to quickly produce updated sales materials in any quantity necessary is crucial to building brand awareness and educating potential customers about the benefits of a Dyson vacuum.

Ordering & Fulfillment
Prior to Unique’s involvement, Dyson account executives would fill out a hand-written form and fax their order to a fulfillment service that would then ship the materials. Unique offered a solution to this problem through a combination of their Online Print Store and fulfillment/ inventory services. Unique warehouses Dyson’s inventory of marketing and promotional materials, and distributes them instantaneously as the account executives order them via a customized web interface.
 
This solution provides Dyson with more efficient ordering/tracking and provides additional tools that allow management to better manage the sales team. More importantly, the Online Print Store gives Dyson the ability to track the inventory status of items in ‘real time’.When the inventory of an item falls to a certain level, the Online Print Store sends a ‘flag’ letting Dyson know it’s time to re-order. For inventory items printed by Unique, re-ordering is virtually seamless.