By Mark Cook, founder and chairman, Catapult Print

So, we’re more than a quarter of the way through the century. How is your 2026 going so far? 

As we begin a new year, it’s always good to look back on the year we’ve just left behind and assess the positives and negatives of the past 12 months. In his latest article, Mark Cook discusses what that means for him.

Making customers’ lives easier in 2026

January is a reset. With the previous year behind us, it’s time to buckle up to embrace the next set of challenges and scale whatever peaks and troughs lie ahead.

2026 marks Catapult’s seventh year in business. We’ve matured, but it’s always good to set new goals and standards for the year ahead, and this year our goal is simple: to stay true to the values of the business we started back in 2018 and utilize all the learning we’ve gained from the past six years.

Understanding customers’ pain points

It’s been clear over the past year that delivering on time and in full, with short lead-times and competitive pricing is essential for helping our customers navigate a challenging market. So it’s no surprise that these will be our three key focus areas for 2026.

We’re not only seeing the impact of market conditions on cash flows and budgets, but also on people. With so many taking on consolidated remits and additional responsibilities, there are no spare minutes in the day for time-poor overstretched individuals to chase their label printer. And why should they? At Catapult, we believe it’s our job to make our customers’ lives easier, which is why we’ve built a candy store of added value practices designed to deliver tangible time-saving solutions. 

Dedicated to continuous improvement

Built from the bottom up over the past seven years, Catapult has been shaped to ensure we support our customers with what they really need – high quality, low pricing, short lead times, and consistently reliable service. It’s not rocket science, but it does give us a unique advantage over our competition.

And it doesn’t end there. We know we can do even more to make our customers’ lives easier, so we will continue to do whatever it takes to be quicker, slicker, and more cost effective by maintaining our investment in automation systems, data analytics, and AI.

2026 is off to a great start for Catapult, with some new customers already onboard, and we’re excited about what the year ahead holds. We have blown away the cobwebs in our industry over the past six years, and we want to continue to offer customers a breath of fresh air by giving them a label partner that’s truly different to what they have been used to.

So, it’s full steam ahead this January as we remain focused on continuous improvement with a passion shared across our team to pioneer a model that challenges our sector and works for our customers.

This blog post originally appeared here on the Catapult website.