Mercian Labels has invested in 2 new websites to support further growth plans in the UK digital labeling market for 2013.

Focusing on the short run UK SME sector, the website www.selfadhesivelabels.com, originally launched in 2001, has now been completely replaced for the sixth time. The latest version focuses on the wide variety of end users for the company’s Xeikon digital labeling offer and is fully compatible with touch screen devices and mobile platforms. Managing Director of the Mercian Labels Group, Adrian Steele, says: “The online marketing space in UK B2B labeling has really ‘hotted up’ in the the past 18 months and we felt the site needed yet another major overhaul to keep at the forefront of the market in terms of style, features and information for new and existing customers. Our long established label industry blog has also received a facelift in the process.”

A second website feature has also been launched to help the Mercian Labels Group hire the best talent for its growing business with a unique online registration system. The website, www.mercianlabels.com/careers invites label and packaging industry professionals potentially interested in working for the group to consider the detailed recruitment process used before registering their private contact details so they are informed about vacancies that are specific to their skill set before they are publicly advertised. Steele commented, “Hiring the right talent is a challenge for any business, but as we continue to grow we have taken a strategic decision to grow our own, confidential database of professionals who may be interested in a role within the group by giving it a public facing front end on our corporate website. Historically we very rarely hire from within the industry, preferring to train people with great potential demonstrated from performance in other industries into the labels and packaging industry. However, sometimes specialist roles do benefit from knowledge gained elsewhere within the industry.”

He added, “This database is totally confidential and will allow us to selectively contact people with the specific background we are looking for when recruiting, without the overhead burden that a public recruiting campaign involves. A recent recruitment process for a entry level role advertised online for 4 days brought 161 applications, so we then decided to try another way for the best candidates and us to find each other. In future, when we can find suitable candidates who have previously registered their interest with us we will interview only from this shortlist. Only if this fails to identify the right candidate will we advertise externally.  We expect that over time many generalist local candidates in the Midlands around Cannock and Derby, as well as label industry specialists nationwide with very specialist and specific skill sets will want to join this database to find out first about the career opportunities on offer across the group.”

Both sites use open source software, a platform favored since 2007 when the company dropped almost all its Microsoft and Mac platforms in favor of more robust and secure open source alternatives.

Steele added, “2012 was yet another record year for the Mercian Labels group and our seventh year of consecutive growth. Customers clearly want to take advantage of our digital labeling and packaging offering and recognize Mercian as being at the forefront of these developments. These new websites help keep us at the cutting edge of the UK labeling industry, and we will have further announcements at the Packaging Innovations Show later in February.”