It’s all change in the fiercely competitive offset plate world, with Heidelberg to supply Fujifilm plates, while its former partner Kodak will now go direct to printers.

Fujifilm managing director Lindsay Barnes expects the new deal will increase sales to the point where Fujifilm will become the number one supplier of sheetfed plates in Australia within 12 months.

“Heidelberg was seeking a new supplier of quality plates after Kodak and since they are the largest player in the market and have great representation in sheetfed we thought it was a good deal,” he says.

Meanwhile, Kodak Australia managing director Steve Venn says the company has decided to go direct to customers after five years of using Heidelberg as its exclusive distributor, citing changes in the Australian print market as one of the main reasons for the decision to drop Heidelberg and go it alone.

“There has been significant consolidation in the Australian market recently, a good example being the collapse of Geon last year, so the plate market has become much more competitive,” he says.

“We didn’t feel we could be competitive going through a distributor and the best way to be competitive was to get back in front of customers and control our own destiny. Our customers say they are looking forward to dealing directly with a manufacturer.”

The move comes as Heidelberg ANZ aligns itself with head office, which has a global deal with Fujifilm. Existing Fujifilm plate customers will continue to work with Fujifilm with the new deal starting on July 1.

Heidelberg Australia sales general manager Richard Timson says the change from Kodak to Fuji plates for Heidelberg was some time in the making.

“Kodak were aware that over the last few years after entering into chapter 11 there were a number of product issues, causing concern to Heidelberg’s customers and for Heidelberg a significant degree of frustration and ultimate loss of custom,” he says.

When Kodak gave notice in January to terminate the Heidelberg/Kodak distributorship it gave us the opportunity to complete arrangements with Fujifilm and move forward to the benefit of our customers.

“Accordingly, the discussions commenced with Fujifilm in 2013 were able to be concluded by the signing of our new distributorship arrangement in February 2014.”

Venn says Kodak will now be in a better position to offer its customers total solutions from plates and workflow to colour solutions, which it had been unable to do with an exclusive distributor arrangement in place.

Kodak will also be in a position to help customers switching to or adding digital, in which the company is increasingly strong.

He says when the deal with Heidelberg was done the market was a very different place and using a distributor was the right thing to do as it would increase Kodak’s reach on the ground.

“A lot of things have changed in the past few years and we felt this was a good time to go back to dealing direct,” he says.

Venn stressed this is a purely commercial decision and the company has been very happy with Heidelberg’s performance. The deal is due to end the day before Fujifilm takes over.

He says Kodak is considering using distributors for A2 and A3 plates, but no exclusive deals and with only one layer of distributor between them and customers, unlike the Heidelberg model which often had two layers.

Timson says the new partnership is in the best interests of Heidelberg's customers and the company looks forward to transitioning its clients to the Fuji Film plate products.

“We have a very loyal customer base that experience the day to day support only Heidelberg can give,” he says.

“Many clients have indicated that they will stay with us, after all we have a full solution to offer customers, not only top performing Fuji plates but a full range across all consumables and equipment.”

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