AWARDS
· National Quality Excellence Vendor Award – Comerica Bank
· Supplier Excellence Award – Texas Instruments, Inc.
· Minority Supplier of the Year – Texas Instruments. Inc.
· Minority Business of the Year – Finalist – DFW MBDC
 NEWS
Caddy Printing goes big-time with national contracts 08/24/04
 
Maddy and Subash Kapoor (center) owners of the Dallas-based Caddy Printing & Graphics Inc. receive a “supplier excellence” award from Comerica Inc.’s Beth Action, far left, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Ron Marcinelli, executive vice president national business finance.
  DALLAS — After 10 years of owning and operating a small printing company, Subash and Madhu Kapoor decided to use their good fortune of landing a big-time client and expand. Now, the couple's Caddy Printing & Graphics Inc. has over 300 customers and records sales of about $2.5 million.

"Texas Instruments launched us," said Subash Kapoor about the early '90s contracts, which the company, then called Caddy Quick Print, grabbed from the technology giant.

Signed on to help alleviate some of the back-log of printing jobs within Texas Instruments Inc., Kapoor said Caddy kept the company coming back with its service and efficiency.

The added business and increased needs from Texas Instruments, he continued, triggered thoughts of expansion.

Until that point, the Dallas-based Caddy Quick Print, which was acquired by Subash and Madhu Kapoor in 1981, had been run entirely by Madhu. Subash worked as a project analysis manager for Frito-Lay Inc. As expansion loomed, though, Subash left Frito-Lay to help his wife run Caddy.

Using loans and personal financing, the couple invested about $750,000 into equipment and facilities that would increase the company's productivity and capacity. Re-named Caddy Printing & Graphics Inc. the company also soon moved to a 31,000 square-foot facility.

"Our performance with (Texas Instruments) helped us get other clients," Subash said. Texas Instruments has awarded Caddy several "supplier excellence" awards.

Other notable Caddy clients include Nortel Networks, J.C. Penney Company Inc., American Airlines Inc., Exxon Corp. and Comerica Inc.

In 1997, Caddy continued to branch out by launching a subsidiary called Caddy Digital Imaging Inc.

Madhu said that this move was prompted by larger clients' needs for graphic services. The digital imaging side of the business also ventured into document storage.

Combining the company's printing capabilities, clients' documents can be scanned onto a CD-ROM and filed according to individual systems.

The following year, Caddy acquire a 20-year old company, Multipress Inc. This acquisition upgraded Caddy's form management services.

Cady has also ventured onto the Web and now processes work for several of its major clients online from across the country.

All these moves have paid off for Caddy. According to Subash, the company has experienced a growth rate of about 20 percent per year.

Surprisingly, Caddy has done all this with no sales force. Subash and Madhu run the company and approximately 20 employees handle the production.

"The majority of our business is referral business," Subash said.

Several years ago, Caddy registered a coup when it grabbed a national contract with Comerica.

Subash said Caddy was the smallest of 11 finalists for the job.

According to Susan Newman, an assistant vice president of corporate servicing, Caddy received the contract for its track record of customer service and high quality products.

Caddy had been working with Comerica on the local level in Texas for several years. Despite this, Subash said, he still had to push just to get a bid in the door for a national contract.

Caddy has since received a "supplier excellence" award by Comerica.

Madhu pointed out that Caddy's relationship with Comerica has been so successful that Caddy now deals directly with Comerica bank branches throughout the country when process printing orders, as opposed to going through the national office.

"Everybody seems to be pretty happy and it is working well," Subash added.

Maintaining a relationship with its big clients is what has kept Caddy going.

Caddy continues to work with Texas Instruments and has printed over 1 million manuals for the company in addition to various design and printing jobs and all of its business cards.

Next up for Caddy is dealing with new technological advances that are changing the nature of the printing industry such as direct to plate digital printing and the increased practice of online publication.

Will this mean more expansion for Caddy?

Subash said he is not yet sure which way the changing industry will take him, his wife and their company. "We have to evaluate what our customer's needs are and go from there."