An excerpt from AP March 2020 Print Leaders Forum – by Esko Regional Marketing and Channels Manager Scott Thompson
It is clear that 2020 is the year that the print industry wakes up fully to the realities of digital transformation. With much focus on sustainability around the world, digitisation of business workflows and printing will be higher on the agenda for all businesses.
Today’s global print marketplace is rapidly migrating to fast turnarounds and short run workloads in order to respond to competitive intensity within omni-channel retailing and the move to online.
Printers must recognise that they are already working in an Industry 4.0 world and focus their efforts on gaining competitive advantage through digitisation, automation and connectivity.
Print quality and consistency are now a given in the mature markets. Driving speed to market, operational efficiency and waste reduction, enabled by digital workflows, is the key to protecting long term profitability and enabling customers to succeed.
Competitive intensity is also accelerating in print as globalisation of the industry comes to the fore, along with consolidation. The companies that succeed will recognise the importance of eradicating waste – in time, money and resources – and work to transform their businesses from functionally siloed reactive companies to highly connected automated businesses that can flex and respond to ever-changing market requirements. This will only accelerate as the decade progresses.
At Esko, we believe that the print sector must digitise, automate and connect if it is to protect long-term profitability and success.
Esko has just released its Digital Maturity Model to support printers on their digital transformation journey. Rather than being impacted or losing competitiveness by not addressing the opportunities that lie ahead, Esko is supporting them to understand their digital maturity status and how to move forward to drive speed, operational efficiency, quality and waste reduction from design to shipping.
We are excited about creating opportunities to support our customers with digital transformation, backed with new cloud-based software solutions that change the game for large organisations struggling with connectivity across sites and geographies.
For the rest of 2020, I’d expect more change to come. Not only is 2020 the start of a digital decade, but one that is green as well. Considerable pressure is being placed on to a variety of print sectors to deliver sustainable solutions, and our industry across the board needs to respond – from the boardroom to the shop floor.
With sustainability firmly in focus across all sectors, we will see considerable growth and substitution of plastics with natural, bio-based, renewable and easily recyclable materials. Digital printing will also continue to penetrate the commercial and label sectors, responding to the demand for even shorter-run work.
This will result in continued growth in the packaging and labels sectors, in particular. With natural population growth and 51 per cent of all packaging relating to food and drink, we will continue to see packaging grow at GDP type levels around the world.
The focus on sustainability will further grow to be front and centre in the objectives of all businesses as legislation and consumer pressures drive change.
I’d also expect digital transformation of the print sector to accelerate – this isn’t just about digital printing; It’s about digitisation of processes, automation of operations, and connectivity across companies, geographies and supply chains to drive efficiency. Industry 4.0 will start to become a common reality.
This article was written prior to the impact of COVID-19. The digital version of AP March 2020 is available here.
And as part of AP’s 70 anniversary, we’re pulling together a list of 70 local industry pioneers – you can make your nominations here.
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